My way
by Arctic-Starflowers
Summary: The resistance succeeded in rescuing Sonic after the two worst months of his life, and then they put up base on the ARK. They tracked down Team Dark, defended their hideout on ARK from Eggman... and now it's time for the resistance to take back their planet. (Forces AU, Eventual Sonadow)
1. Blood on your hands

**A/N: hello! Just a short note: this fic wasn't meant to be some incredibly philosophical, deep character study, and it... mostly isn't. (okay, there's some darker stuff in here, but.) I wrote this story to be** _ **fun**_ **, and it** _ **was**_ **fun to write it. It's also a canon-divergence AU!**

 **-October edit:** _well. it still is a canon-divergence AU, but I'm not so sure about the rest, as the plot keeps evolving..._

* * *

Mercenaries where spiteful, prideful, and hard to get rid of. Jackal Squad were just as annoying as all the others, no matter how much better than most they were with a blade. Shadow should know, having lent a hand to many and destroyed equally as many others. Jackal Squad's leader, though… he was _skilled_. He was someone Shadow could have respected, maybe even _allied_ himself with, if only Infinite hadn't-

-decided to take over the world.

Mismatched eyes wild, nearly glowing in the light of the embers, he ascends from a pile of wreckage, _flying_ in the air. A brush of his hand, and the people in front of him first widen their eyes in fear, frozen in place – and then they fall down, dead. Shadow's crouched down on a roof watching it all, and the power radiating off of Infinite is so strong, so _overwhelming_ that Shadow feels like he will never get rid of this headache. The instinct to flee, confronted by-

It must be a performance.

The Chaos emerald Shadow has been carrying around isn't even a _fraction_ as strong as whatever it is Infinite's got. It simply isn't _possible_.

There's no way he could win this fight. Ultimate Lifeform against the Ultimate Mercenary – he needs a plan. He needs a strategy, he needs answers-

-As another batch of innocent citizens with their whole bright lives in front of them gets pointlessly slaughtered, Shadow the Hedgehog makes his move and leaves Central City for good. And as the next morning dawns blood red, the city is renamed Metropolis and flies the flag of the Eggman Empire, even though the fighting around Ivory Plaza won't stop for long yet…

* * *

He leaves a message for Rouge: _the jackal's name is Infinite. Don't try to fight him alone._ He presses the send icon – and then he writes another message; _I'm leaving the zone._ To the point. He can explain more in person, later. But– after a moment of consideration, he adds: _Goodbye._

* * *

 **Two months later…**

The audience – his friends, his acquaintances, brave survivors – has the hall explode into applause, whistling and cheering as Sonic bows once, grinning as he leaves their makeshift podium made out of old crates and tape. He had just held a hopefully reassuring speech, told a few jokes and presented an _excellent_ case for why he _shouldn't_ lead the resistance. He refuses to take up the mantle as Commander, and honestly – would he actually do a good job as Commander?

-That's why they have Knuckles, anyway. Knux is the better leader, but Sonic makes the best speeches. Share the work. See your kingdom _flourish_.

…And no one needs to know how Sonic still flinches at red lights, at screeching metal, still freezes momentarily at the glint of steel-

Ah, well! Off to flirt with the new recruits!

With a forced cheerful spring in his step Sonic then starts traversing the corridors, greeting each and every person he passes on his way to the Great Room. It is pretty crazy that they actually, whoa _whoa_ , managed to move the whole resistance up into the ARK… It's pretty _insane_ , actually. The _good_ things are that no one knows the ARK even exists, and that the ARK is a vast maze of available space, _and_ that the station has defences already in place that even the _Doctor_ can't break through without considerable effort. Haha!

…The _bad_ thing is that you need a shuttle every time you want to get back down to the surface. To only see grass and blue skies again, to feel rain on your skin… not to mention it takes like a week just to get your _own_ grocery shopping done, not to mention rations for the whole base which would amount to- well. They're all going to be eating a lot of canned food the next few… _months_ , Sonic hopes; hopes that the resistance will have beaten Eggman in a few months' time…

They only need a plan. And that's why they have the Great Room – affectionately named by Sonic, taking no suggestions from Knuckles – the meeting room. The one without dust, and with flashy blue lights lining the ceiling and a panorama window out to the stars. And the doors open automatically if you wave your hand, which Sonic does, and proceeds to enter the Great Room. Several people either wave or scowl at him, so he grins back.

"You're late," growls Knuckles, ever so irritated.

"A little," Sonic quips back, taking his seat. "What have I missed?"

Tails wordlessly holds up his Miles Electric with a stern expression. The screen reads, _The glorious Eggman Empire is growing ever greater! As of today, the republic of Holoska and the kingdom of Soleanna join our glorious empire!_

"That's… not good."

And they had been so sure that the kingdom of Soleanna would manage to hold on a bit longer…

He tears his eyes away from the article. "So… how do we reconquer this?"

Knuckles exchanges a look with Amy, their best strategist. The price on her head is almost as high as the one on Sonic's (it could be higher, but Eggman has a personal vendetta bordering on obsession against _Sonic_ ). "We've contacted our forces in Soleanna, and they _could_ theoretically take the city back…

"But first, we _need_ to get rid of Infinite."

All eyes fall on Sonic.

And. And no, he _can't-_

"I couldn't beat him," Sonic says, mostly to himself. "He-"

"He needs to be stopped," Knuckles cuts in, face grim. And then it softens, just slightly. "Please, if anyone can take down that bastard… it is _you_."

Sonic can't stop himself from replying, trying to act casual, "So you're finally admitting I'd beat you in a fight?"

Knuckles doesn't budge, just continues to look at him. Like he's waiting for Sonic to admit to… to _he doesn't know what._ Sonic looks back, feeling his grin slipping. _Knuckles_ , he tries to say with his eyes, _I can't do it. I can't. He'll get me just like last time and-_

-and _blackout_. Red lights, red lights – he can't feel his legs, he _can't – he's trapped_ -

His hand is shaking. It's the hand that's missing one and a half finger.

* * *

 **Three weeks ago…**

When the United Federation fell, Dr Eggman decided that he had waited long enough. Which meant that Sonic was finally about to die – and oh, how Sonic wanted to laugh at him. How he _wanted_ to, but instead there was a cold, creeping fear spreading through his veins and he felt like- like this might be _it_. Like everything had gone _way_ too far this time, too far even for him…

With hands shackled he can't do much, but one of his latest nervous ticks is to gingerly rub his other hand over the scar tissue, and that he can do. Scar tissue. Fingers cut off-

 _It can't get to me_ , he thinks desperately, feeling nauseous. _I'm the fastest thing alive. Nothing can get to me._

 _(Not even torture.)_

-When Zavok comes back, opens the cell door, freeing his hands – Sonic realises that this is his _one_ chance at escape. His friends need him, and _he_ needs to see that they're all safe- and how he wants to feel the wind. The vast sun soaked fields, the unpolluted forests and the jagged mountain ranges- to run on real earth, feel real air, real dirt and dust… He misses it with every single part of his body. He needs to escape.

…And then, there's that fire of anger burning quietly, beneath all the cold fear.

As soon as his hands are free, Sonic curls up and dashes away, bouncing against a wall before coming straight at Zavok. The Zeti (how is he _here_ again?) stumbles back, and Sonic lands, skidding to a halt before standing up with a grin, part nasty and part joyous.

-And then sirens start wailing, red lights starting to flash as speakers crackle static: " _Intruders in sector B-4. Intruders in sector-"_

Could it possibly be… that his friends are finally arriving?

Wild hope flickers in Sonic's chest, and after a look at Zavok he decides to just get out of here. Zavok can wait: right now Sonic just wants to be reunited with Tails and Knuckles and Amy and-

Grinning, he dashes for the doors, and zaps through the corridors…

There are many small rooms on his way which makes Sonic's skin crawl with discomfort, and many sudden sounds which makes him flinch – but he doesn't stop running. It's so _good_ to be able to run again. He knows he need to get to the shuttle hangar, and fast if possible, so he jumps and leaps and ducks and takes all shortcuts he can find.

He's nearly at the hangar, when luck runs out and he runs straight into a squadron of robots…

And it might have been another jolt of anxiety he felt, but he ignores it and concentrates on smashing the 'bots. Kicks two of them into a wall, puts a shoe through the head of another, turns around to look- and then there's the cold barrel of a gun pressed to his head.

 _I wasn't fast enough_ , he thinks hysterically. No time at all passes and the robot presses the trigger-

– and then _flames_ erupt from his right, and the last robots promptly short-circuit and die. Sonic flinches away on pure instinct, feeling the scorching heat, and the shot from the robot flies by, grazes his ear, harmlessly.

 _Oh, gods._

Sonic spins around, and sees a… mobian. With glasses. Oh, alright then, he thinks, adrenaline still buzzing in his ears, trembling with it. A _mobian_. OK.

He relaxes a tiny bit, and blurts out the first thing which comes to mind; "You here to rescue me? Been a while since I've seen a friendly face."

The mobian, the guy just beginning to get up from the floor, flips on the safe on his weapon (honestly, what _is_ that weapon? It looks like a wisp, almost-) and stands up fully. He's taller than Sonic, but who isn't. And then the guy starts speaking, voice surprisingly toneless, "I- yeah, we're here to rescue… Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog."

"Well," says Sonic, shrugs, and smiles tiredly. "That's me."

…and then the unmistakable tune of a communicator starts playing. The guy who rescued him fumbles for it, and comes up with a green one hidden underneath the wristband of his glove. "Hello?" he has time to ask, and then someone with a light voice answers. The guy listens for a bit, before saying, "Yes, he's here-" and then he turns up the volume.

" _Sonic_!" cheers at least three voices in a chorus, and it's like a surprise hug. " _We were worried sick-"_

" _Are you alright?"_

Him? _Alright_? "Good enough," Sonic says. And then, happier, before he can choke on his emotions, "I've missed you guys." _So long-_

" _So much, us too-!"_ Comes the chorus, and Amy and Tails start to talk over each in their haste to update him on the situation, so Sonic takes a step back. The guy who saved him takes this as his cue to end the call, telling Amy 'bye' and saying 'we'll be on our way.' And then that guy turns off his communicator, slips it back into his glove, and looks at Sonic again…

There's a sort of pause, and Sonic thinks he might be remembering how to breathe normally again.

"You… I kind of thought you'd be taller," that guy confesses sheepishly.

Sonic raises a hand to rub at his ear, and says offhandedly, "Nah. Dunno who's been spreading those rumours, anyway." You know what would be nice right now? To actually _get to_ those blasted shuttles so they can escape this hunk of junk.

Instead the guy says, "Other than that-" and then his voice just drops. And so does his face. "Your hand-" he says, shocked, and Sonic thinks _dammit, dammit_ \- "-you're – your fingers are-"

Sonic tries to hide his hand behind his back, the guy reaching for it- and Sonic snaps, "Let's just get back to Mobius, _alright_?"

Sonic almost thinks that this will spark an argument. But instead the guy says, "…Fine. And my name's Gadget."

 _Gadget, huh._ Sonic nods impatiently, and then _finally_ they're heading for the shuttles. The resistance seems to have stolen one of Eggman's shuttles and painted their star over the Eggface logos, but Sonic couldn't care less as long as the thing can fly fast enough. And it turns out that _yes, it can_ , because as soon as Sonic and Gadget have buckled their seatbelts the pilot, a bird called Avi, makes the thing shoot off into space like a bullet.

Sonic catches one last glance of the Death Egg, and thinks that if he had enough explosives right now – then he would've personally turned the shuttle right back around to go and blow that damned place to a million billion tiny _bits_.

* * *

 **Five weeks ago…**

First and foremost, Gadget the Wolf had been a scholar. He loved research, books, mathematics; he loved figuring stuff out. He had worked for GUN as a CE-weapon developer, which in hindsight is a pretty shady career. They engineered weapons which based their functions off of Chaos Energy, such as shields of energy and guns which shot bullets of searing blue light. Gadget himself had made prosthetic hands and protective gloves, with inbuilt energy shields which would switch on if you flicked your wrist just right…

However, there had also been That Branch which worked with biological weapons. Illegal, scary _and_ shady business. They made artificial diseases. They made all kinds of confidential and dangerous projects…

…and when Gadget first saw Infinite, hovering out in that corridor, all he could think of was that he looked like a monster made in those labs. Or no, not _looked like_ – Infinite looked like a jackal with mismatched eyes and long wispy hair – it was how it _felt_ to be near him that sent chills up your spine. There wasn't that much time to muse upon it though, and Gadget and the other fourteen scientists at work had to move very, _very_ fast.

Nia and Scales shut off all the lights, five others tried desperately to power down as many unstable pieces of engineering as possible, and Gadget and the rest got to work opening the emergency exit. The speakers installed in the walls just kept playing, _hostile intruder on floor minus three, identified as Mercenary infinite. Hostile intruder on-_ and then the gunfire began, drowning out the rest…

And Infinite killed the soldiers in the blink of an eye, the gunfire stopping dead. The speakers crackled, once, and then they died too.

The whole floor seemed to hold its breath, and then… then Infinite turned towards the CE engineering workshop.

And all the scientists, Gadget included, fled toward the emergency exit, finally open-

-a blast of red light, and Gadget watched in horror as fourteen scientists collectively seemed to choke on air, knees buckling. Infinite was just – just hovering there and Scales was _choking_ -

Gadget reached for him, frozen numb with horror-

-and then the lizard stilled. Blood trickled from his mouth, but his chest didn't move – his eyes unseeing-

" _No_ ," Gadget whispers before he can stop himself, breath hitching and voice cracking. "No, no, no-"

It all felt so very, very unreal.

 _This can't-!_

"Run, boy," drawls an unfamiliar voice, and Gadget feels a tremor of fear as he realises that _it's Infinite speaking._ "Run… and I'll spare your life."

-he hates himself for it, but run he does, runs for his life, and for the lives of all his fourteen colleagues who never got the chance.


	2. The start of a 'beautiful' friendship

**A/N: thanks so much for the feedback! :'D it made my week (like I can't believe how much support this has gotten?) -Anyway, Infinite isn't actually wearing a mask here because he didn't fight Shadow here, and so on—**

* * *

The resistance had been unable to contact GUN for weeks. This wouldn't really have mattered, except that Rouge and Omega were still working for them. Knuckles was getting anxious, and Sonic understood that very well… It was getting really bad down there. Everyone was itching for something to do, any way to get some news…

"Let me go and take a look at GUN HQ," Sonic proposes, on their next meeting.

Knuckles raises an eyebrow, very slowly. Amy purses her lips. And Tails looks mildly surprised, before then quickly returning to his Miles Electric with a look clearly saying, _oh, so it's_ _this again_. Vector and Espio share a look, while Mighty folds his arms.

"Just you?" Knuckles asks.

"No? I can take a team with me. You know, some other fighters."

"And you would only do recon?"

"If that's what you want, _Commander_." Sonic says, and winks.

Knuckles and Amy share a look.

"Fine." Knuckles sighs, and puts on his best Boss Face. "I'll assign you Spark Squad; you'll take over as leader instead of Jay." That name tells Sonic nothing, so he hopes that 'Jay' won't be terribly mad to have his squad borrowed for a while.

"Cool! I'll do my best to 'only recon'!"

Knuckles gives him a stern look but Sonic just grins at him, quickly exiting the room. Yes. _Yes_! He was finally going to get back down to the surface! As great as it had been to rest up here on the ARK, he was sure he would soon go nuts if he wouldn't be allowed to run free again. Breathe fresh air again, do some real work again, blow up some of Eggman's strongholds again…

Or not, since this was a Recon Mission.

A recon mission. He should be fine – he means _of course_ he'd be fine, but. But it's so… strange. A month in – in the Death Egg and now suddenly he can feel anxiety and fear – and he used to be fearless. He used to be undaunted. He used to-

-Well! _Let's have a look at Spark Squad!_

Spark Squad turns out to consist of ten people, with Sonic as the eleventh. He recognises no one. Or _wait_ \- that's Gadget standing over there by the shuttle. Gadget, the guy who rescued him. Gadget, the guy concerned about Sonic's ruined left hand before Sonic could hide it with new gloves…

Sonic ignores him pointedly.

"Hi guys!" he says cheerfully, as he walks up to the shuttle. The members of Spark Squad, most of them lounging around on boxes and crates, all look up. And then there's a sort of simultaneous quiet… and _then_ there's hastily muffled gasps, recognition in their eyes. Sonic smiles because he _knows_ , and states, "Alright, we have a recon mission in Central City, and I'll be your Squad leader."

The murmur of ' _Sonic the Hedgehog?!_ ' gradually quiets down, the mood clearly taking a 180 turn, and after a moment a yellow bird pipes up with a, "Central City? Isn't that…"

"Metropolis? Yup," Sonic affirms. "It'll only be recon though. Commander's orders."

Walking into Metropolis was like delivering yourself to your doom on a silver platter, or so the statistics say. Apparently the resistance had tried to help take back the city earlier in the war, but 70% of their forces had been swallowed whole by the city and its defence, and not even GUN could do anything. Picked off in groups by – by Infinite, and then robots took care of the few scattered rest…

…Sonic isn't used to losing people like that. Knuckles isn't used to it. _None_ of them are used to it. It was always just Sonic and his friends, and they… almost always survived. (Gamma is fondly remembered, and so is Emerl) The Black Arms War wasn't nearly as- it wasn't this _bad_ , simply. This whole war is almost unbelievable, while at the same time it's so _there_ and _up in your face_ that it feels like you can never get a proper night's rest. Sonic feels like he's dizzy. Or like he doesn't know where this will go, how it could possibly end-

 _(Please let my friends live)_

Rouge and Omega. They must be alive and in hiding somewhere in Central City, right? And they'll find them. _They will._

* * *

He wasn't a leader. Sonic wanted Knuckles to believe he was one, but – okay, yes, he did well enough. He could order people around, stalk through the corridors purposefully, and discuss battle plans with Amy and Tekno just fine. He could lead an army and hell, the troops trusted him, because he put his faith in them. But, Knuckles was always going to be a better treasure hunter, fighting on his own, than he was going to be a resistance leader…

(Isn't there someone better suited for this? …Not here, not now.)

Though he didn't _mind_ being the Commander, especially. At the very least it granted him the rights to boss Sonic around, which was pretty sweet.

…And somehow Knuckles still managed to be concerned for him. There was something wrong with Sonic. Ever since he had come back from the Death Egg, there had been something missing… and not just his digits. (Sonic got Knuckles to swear up and down not to mention _that_ to anyone except for Amy and Tails) It's like a vital part of him which no one has ever noticed before, is suddenly gone. The light cut out of the stars.

Knuckles… thought Sonic might be afraid.

-Which _did_ sound completely preposterous. (Just not preposterous _enough_ )

If he'd known what to say (when did he _ever_ ) then he would've tried to help, but as it is he's just too caught up in work. Talking, reading reports, sending messages, meetings, briefings, trying to oversee the guys on clean-up duty – because ARK is filled to its very edges with weird… things – assigning squads to those over there, and then back to calling people again-

-and then a lanky dog with glasses taps him on the shoulder, quickly saying, "Sir, the _Bluejay_ is ready to take off." –And alright, _who's_ naming those shuttles? Because they need to Have A Talk. Second off: why does Knuckles need to know about it?

He raises an eyebrow at the dog, who hastily explains, "You said you wanted an update when Sonic the Hedgehog was about to depart. He's aboard the _Bluejay_ with Spark Squad."

"Already?" Knuckles mutters. And then, "You're dismissed, by the way."

The dog immediately scurries away to do whatever it is he does, how should Knuckles know, and Commander Knuckles is left standing in the middle of the corridor. _Why is it_ , he thinks, _that I always have to get a bad feeling about something when it's already too late?_ Hopefully, Sonic and Spark Squad will do okay and not get violently murdered by Eggman's forces. Hopefully.

…In any case, he won't be seeing Sonic for a while.

So. _Goodbye, Hedgehog…_

* * *

 **Three weeks ago…**

Asking around after 'Jackal Squad' was proving to be quite fruitless. Shadow, currently wearing a reddish shawl and an irritated expression, was in a small desert town close to Shamar's border, trying to… well, he wasn't sure exactly _what_ information he hoped to uncover in this endeavour. Starting in the beginning had seemed the best option, so he had been trying to trace Infinite's life as far back as to his birthplace…

Useless. Weeks had passed, and all he had achieved was to travel to all major villages in the deserts between Shamar and the United Federation. Jackal Squad had roamed primarily through this area, scattering rumours like sand, but where they actually came from... no one knew. No one had paid enough attention back then. No one remembered.

…At least it was peaceful out here. Conquerors didn't care much for wastelands, but Shadow was sure Shamar would give the Doctor one hell of a fight when he finally decided to try and take over their country.

 _Infinite_.

-His newfound power couldn't possibly be anything he himself alone had achieved, and his past wasn't anything extraordinary…

Which meant that someone _else_ gave him that power. _Dr Eggman, obviously._ Shadow frowns to himself, leaning against a stone wall. Now _how_ would the Doctor have created something like that? Something that strong, something which radiates a power Shadow cannot even name- something like _that_ , and then _why_ just give it all to Infinite? Mercenaries weren't known for their trustworthiness…

(Every time Shadow insulted mercenaries, there was a little smug voice in his head reminding him that _he_ could be considered a mercenary, too.)

The heat must be making him slow in the head.

How could Infinite stand it out here? Or the whole of Jackal Squad for that ma-

Wait. _Where did Jackal Squad disappear to?_ Because Infinite had definitely been alone when he began the invasion of Central City…

Shadow needs to get back to the Federation. Break into some of the Doctor's facilities, hack the computers – he must be keeping blueprints stored somewhere. Battle plans, information. And… Shadow needs to see how Rouge and Omega and the others are faring, sooner or later. It's good to be one of the fastest beings on this planet, because then it doesn't take long to cross the deserts again…

 _Time to return home._

* * *

 **Three months ago…**

The third time he met Infinite, it was raining. Though it was more like a tired drizzle which drenches you slowly, and it was more of an accidental run-into-each-other than a meeting. Ridley and Whip, the only others Shadow knew by name, pointed Shadow out to Infinite. And Infinite looked up, up and above the heads of his squadmates and across the street, and Shadow stared back. One blue eye, one amber.

Infinite said, _shame you're not a jackal._

Shadow said, _I've got my own team._

* * *

 **Presently…**

It will take the _Bluejay_ approximately an hour to get to their destination, and no one allows Sonic to try and pilot it faster. Right now the ARK's massive silhouette still hovers behind them, and both of Mobius' moons can be seen clearly from the window, offering quite the view of the destroyed side of Luna II. A jagged grey wound the size of a moon. The view… the view makes Sonic think of Shadow.

He has always associated space with his rival, for obvious reasons.

Reminds him of the time he saved Shadow's life. He smirks, even though it wasn't that funny. It wasn't funny at _all_ , in fact, what with the ARK coming crashing down towards Mobius and Sonic's Super form burning up faster than usual. Super Shadow, silver light fading fast as he fell- but Sonic managed to catch his wrist in time. Managed to _not let go_ no matter how it burnt, managed to teleport them both back to the ARK. They both immediately collapsed, unconscious for a whole week afterward, but he had _saved_ Shadow, so the bruises didn't matter to Sonic…

He had thought there was something… _special_ about them, back then. Fated rivals, or something.

Though then the Black Arms War had thrown them right back onto the battlefield, and Sonic didn't see Shadow for months, until-

"Sonic the Hedgehog?" A voice asks, and Sonic looks to his left and sees… Gadget. Gadget the wolf the guy who rescued him, and _when did he pop up?_

"Yes?" Sonic the Hedgehog answers, unenthusiastically.

"I- Your hand," says Gadget uncomfortably.

"What about it?"

"It was just-" he takes a deep breath. "I could try and make you a replacement finger. If you wanted me too, that is."

It takes at least half a second for the words to sink in. "That…" Sonic pauses, looks down at his hand. Index finger gone, and the tip of the middle finger, too. Actual _bits_ of him, flesh and bone, which he will _never_ get back. Couldn't. And he _doesn't_ think about the specific moment he lost them because that makes him sick every time-

He takes a deep breath, he too. And then he looks down at the floor, because he had already refused the exact same offer from Tails, and says, "It – it would just be a waste of resources. But thanks for offering." _Really_. It was unexpected but… nice. He looks up again, smiling tentatively at Gadget.

Gadget's face colours a little, and he nods. Starts speaking. "I mean, we could probably – but if you think it's not-" he stops, and tries again with a simple, "I understand."

Sonic nods slowly, trying to process his words. "Anyway," he then says, friendlier, "Are you an engineer? Or-?"

"I work – work _ed_ at GUN, weapon developer. Mostly prosthetics, though." There's a pause. Gadget looks a bit like he's questioning whether to go through with something or not- "And you don't exactly… have a job, do you?"

Ah. That question. "Nah. I just save people." He grins at Gadget.

And… Gadget grins back, a bit like he's startled by the sudden humour.

…But then he sobers up, and says, "Your hand – you'll be fine though, right?"

 _What now-_ "Sure I'll be," Sonic says, waving it off. "I'm _always_ fine."

-And then the pilot announces that they will land in the next ten minutes, and 'please keep your seatbelts on.' The conversation ends and Sonic quickly looks at the windows – and there, _there_ is Mobius. Through Gadget's words still echoing in his head, Sonic grins wide at the view: at the sprawling green forests and jungles, the (admittedly burned) fields far in the distance, the grey-blue sky touching the ground far, far on the horizon…

And, then, Central City. _Metropolis_. The villain's lair. The tyrant's den. Thin white skyscrapers and shiny steel, nothing of the old grey and neon left. Though he can also see a few comically bright construction cranes, which is immensely funny. Hah, _not even Egghead can build a capital in one day…_

The _Bluejay's_ landers touches ground, and then the shuttle is officially back on the surface.

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N:** more action in the next chapter, I promise.


	3. Long time no see

The door opens with a low hiss, and fresh air floods inside. And then Spark Squad floods outside, a joyful Sonic taking the lead. He has half a mind to just set off in a mad dash of freedom, of wild happiness, and run through all his favourite locations… But that's not possible. They're in enemy territory now, and even if Eggman didn't have enough time to eradicate all the forests, doesn't mean that the cities are still standing…

( _weigh the fresh air against your ruined hand)_

…At least it wasn't that long ago the Federation fell, so there should still be lots of supplies left.

"Okay, Spark Squad," Sonic begins, turning to address the group. "Next… we'll be heading right to Metropolis." _Regroup, maybe?_ "I'll take three people with me, and the rest stay here with the shuttle and make sure it doesn't go anywhere." The group laughed a tiny bit at the joke, and Sonic grinned. "Anyway – any volunteers-," Sonic winks, "-Who want to go to Metropolis with me?"

-First to raise a hand, was a white coyote who looked rather impish. Then, after a few seconds, a cyan cat. And finally, Gadget tentatively held up his hand.

"Great!" Sonic says brightly, and the hands go down. "So it's Gadget, and-?"

"Rex," says the coyote simply.

"My name's Faith," says the cat.

"Well, then I think we're ready to go," Sonic says. "You've got your weapons?" The three mobians hold up a wispon each, Gadget still sporting the red one which blew flames way back in the Death Egg… "Good. Communicators?" Also good. And lastly, Sonic turns to the seven other people in Spark Squad, and asks, "You'll be fine here like this?"

"Yes, sir," replies a fox, and Sonic groans internally at the 'sir'. Though 'sir' is hardly the worst thing he's been called…

He just says, "Then I think it's time we get going."

They pack their bags with rations, and say goodbye to the rest of Spark Squad. Sonic just waves at them with what he hopes is a reassuring face, because he doesn't know these guys, not really. No heartfelt hugs, not that he ever has the time for one. And then, they start heading toward the skyscrapers in the distance, toward Metropolis…

* * *

The forest – the _jungle,_ let's face it – turns out be quite big. Large. Enormous. Sonic could easily have crossed it in fifteen minutes _by himself_ … And oh, how tempted he was. Yet, he didn't. Because he had teammates now, who he was supposed to bring along with him to the capital, and he wasn't going to just leave them behind…

They move unbelievably slowly. In fact, they had to set up a tiny camp with two tents and no campfire, because it got so dark they couldn't see anything through the foliage. Annoyance nibbles at Sonic, but he doesn't say anything – just agrees to the tent-shares and stows away his bag. Faith and Rex share a tent, so Gadget and Sonic get the other one.

He contemplates going to sleep. He contemplates having an awkward 'sleepover' with Gadget. He contemplates… sneaking away to have a late night stroll in the woods, a bit of solitude and taste of freedom-

It's not a hard choice.

Sonic slips away from the camp when the others have their backs turned, not wanting anyone to stop and ask, and easily disappears into the murky depths of the jungle. Birds chirrup softly, other animals chittering somewhere close by, and twigs creak and leaves rustle as Sonic makes a path. At first it's mostly just black and green, dark and humid, but then – he swears he can see lights in the distance. Mystic Ruins?

-his pace slows and slows until he's almost stopped moving altogether, peering into the trees, trying to see… something. There's just the hint of orange, pink, bright lights, but they're too far off to discern…

And then, he stops completely.

He can feel… something.

No, he knows _exactly_ what it is he's sensing, but no, _no_ -

Because he needs to know for sure, and because he's reckless and stupid like _that_ according to Knuckles and Tails, Sonic starts running toward the lights and the bad feeling. It takes only moments for him to cut through the greenery, bursting out into an open area with tall imposing pillars and unfinished buildings adorned with lights- and _there_ , two floating figures-

 _Silver's here_ , Sonic realises distantly, while the rest of him screams, _Infinite_.

The scene is eerie and out-of-place in the forest. A white shape hurtling at a black shape, tailed by blue light, and then the black shape bolts around, tailed by pink light. Red clashing with cyan, again and again and again until-

Silver falls.

Sonic's next thought is nothing at all, because he just acts, leaping out at Infinite fuelled on adrenaline. Fear and rage and something unnervingly similar to hysterical _calm_ washes over him, and he skids to a stop in front of Silver. Thrown into a wall, and now he's lying haplessly on the ground, grimacing— but then he sees Sonic, and his face just. Cycles through shock and surprise and relief and anxiety to land on happiness.

"Sonic," he croaks, smiling faintly with blood trickling down his chin. Damn. His jaw looks like it's broken-

"I'll take over," Sonic says. "Hang on, Silver, I'll-" _no, wait_. Sonic tears off his communicator and throws it at him. "Call someone."

Silver manages half a nod, and Sonic turns his back to him. Facing – Infinite.

Cold creeps up his spine, and he clenches his hand (to stop a shudder so violent he might've-). He clenches his han _ds_ , because he's just fine, and he'll take this bastard down-

"Little blue saviour," Infinite says, mouth slowly turning into a smirk.

"Infinite," Sonic acknowledges perfectly impassively.

No introductions needed. Not since Death Egg and that cold empty cell-

-Which Sonic _doesn't_ think of. Off-limits, now back to the present.

"So, how's it going?" Sonic forces himself to say. Grinning coldly. "Your army still stuck at the border to Shamar? Found any super special power sources lately? Hey, we could talk about _your_ power source!"

"You're weak and insignificant," Infinite says, like he's rehearsing a script. "I have powers you cannot even begin to fathom."

"Like what? Glow-in-the-dark shoes?" Sonic quips back.

"You," Infinite grits out. "Will bow down to me. I'll make you _beg_ for _death_ -"

Sonic just replies, one of his stock responses for situations like these: "Not if I take you down first!"

-and then they're flying at each other. Sonic jumps and bounces against a wall, shooting at him, and they collide. Air and noise and light just crackle around them, and Sonic bounces right back off, breaking into a run as soon as he lands. Infinite zooms after him, and then-

The world is _flipped upside-down._

Red _somethings_ cloud Sonic's vision, and he stumbles and goes flying- and everything spins, until-

-he _crashes_ into the ground – no, the _wall_ – all air getting knocked out of him. Sonic just blinks dazedly, something wet running down the side of his head, and tries to reach for- anything. Something. And then the world shudders _again_ , and he thinks maybe his eyes are failing him-

He falls. Hits the ground head first, tries to take a breath, pain exploding like fireworks underneath his eyelids.

"Enjoying our game yet, _hero_?" says a voice from somewhere vaguely above him, and Sonic rolls over onto his back, eyes snapping open.

Infinite is floating directly above him.

Memories and nightmares spill over Sonic, along with exploding shame because _he got beaten by that scoundrel-_

He bites down on his lip until he tastes blood.

"You're pathetic," Infinite says, almost gleefully. "You're not even good enough to die."

And then Infinite turns. And _leaves_ , blasting off into the greenery.

…Sonic closes his eyes, lets out a shuddering breath which almost gets stuck in his throat, and mutters, "That went well."

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

The tent is empty, the camp is deserted, and when Gadget calls no one answers. Technically Faith _does_ answer, shouting at him to keep it quiet, please – but _Sonic_ is nowhere to be found. Where is he? _Where is he?_

If it were anyone else, Gadget would just think: he can't have gotten far. Unfortunately Sonic is known all around the world as the fastest thing alive and- and that throws a whole bunch of wrenches into all of Gadget's calculations. Sonic could be _anywhere_. He could be in another country, heck, what does Gadget know?

He's gone from calm to panic and then right back to calm again, and now he just sits outside of the tent staring out into the night. He's trying not to chew on his fingers from the anxiety, while silently cursing Sonic's blasted ideas.

-And that's when he hears something. Shuffling. Twigs snapping. Muffled… conversation, from deeper in the woods.

It _better_ be Sonic talking to himself because if it's enemies _then_ -

The bushes next to their tent gets shoved to the side.

Gadget springs to his feet, fumbling to draw his Wispon—and then Sonic stumbles out from the foliage. Followed by _another_ hedgehog. The other guy has white fur and a lot of blood in his face, and Gadget doesn't know whether he should help him or-? Attack stance? _Why me?_ He glances at Sonic – and then he sees that _shit_ , Sonic is also bleeding.

"What happened?" Gadget asks automatically. And then, angrier, "No, _why_ did you run off? And who's that?"

"We ran into trouble, because I was bored," Sonic rattles off- ",and _this_ is Silver!"

"Silver?" Gadget repeats, trying to convey just how annoyed he is with Sonic right now through sheer flatness of voice.

"De 'edgeog," answers _Silver_ (the Hedgehog). His voice sounds garbled and he's tentatively cradling his jaw. "'m here cause o' Knux."

Alright. Alright, Commander Knuckles sent this guy here because-? "Why?"

"'ong story." Long story, huh. Gadget doesn't care to hear it now, and the both of them are injured-

"Okay. Just- get inside the tent, please?"

Sonic nods thankfully at Gadget, who is still fuming silently, and then both he and Silver stagger inside of the tent. Gadget takes a moment to compose himself, and then he follows them inside. He makes them both lie down on the cots, and digs out the first-aid kit and starts working on the stuff that he can fix easily. Regular wounds and bruises, wash away the blood and patch them up…

Though Silver's jaw... it appears to be broken. He can't fix it with just gauze and disinfectant!

"Your jaw will have to wait before we can get back to – to the base."

"Ah, thahs fine." Silver attempts a smile, and winces. Gadget almost winces in sympathy but catches himself, because he's still mad.

"That'll be all," he tells Silver. And then he turns to Sonic, and glares at him. Sonic just gives him an unimpressed look from under all the bandages around his head, and Gadget – Gadget _snaps_ , "What on Mobius happened?!" ' _Ran into trouble?'_ Silver's jaw is broken!

"Trouble, I said!" Sonic says defensively. "Just-" he stops. Reconsiders, maybe. And then he begins again, quieter. "We… ran into Infinite."

 _Infinite_.

Gadget – Gadget goes very still and cold. Infinite. _Here_. He regrets asking, but also not. He does regret yelling, though.

"Is he still-"

"No, he left."

Thank Chaos.

(But he might return...)

* * *

 **A day ago…**

Central City was a hellscape of destroyed buildings, rows of wrecked cars, and ruined streets littered with bodies, sometimes in several pieces. Crushed glass glimmered everywhere like snow, some skyscrapers were still slowly burning, the sky was thick with smoke and dust, and squadrons of robots continued to swarm the city, soldiers and civilians shooting at them with everything they had. People ran through the chaos, hid in alleyways and cellars, and all things like malls, offices, cinemas, stores and _basic fucking common sense_ were being destroyed.

…This still being in motion might've been because it was the busiest district of the city. Ivory Plaza, right next to Main Street and GUN HQ, with the President's residence right up ahead. The fighting had been going on nonstop for two months.

Gradually, GUN had been losing control of the city, with the suburbs, train stations, EX-gear tracks, Night Babylon district and harbour already completely under Eggman's control. His newest construction projects could be seen perfectly clear from the roof of GUN HQ – and what a waste of money they were. Pristine white spires cluttered with geometrical shapes? Honestly, Rouge would rather just observe another deranged amusement park.

-Though she hadn't even visited HQ for four (five?) days, so why complain? She could worry about these tasteless rations which were running out, how GUN were completely cut off from the rest of the world and fighting a losing battle, and how Omega was currently blacked out. Shut down. Standby-mode.

In a blasted coma, essentially.

...Rouge had half a mind to just kick him and see if it restarted him, but he was too loyal a teammate for that. She'd go with another five minutes of trying to force his circuits to fire up again, if she had that long, haha- was that _another_ damn Eggpawn squadron-

-and an orange streak zapped through the squadron, bouncing from pawn to pawn in a matter of seconds. There was a noise, and then – _then_ all the pawns exploded into bits of shrapnel and fire.

Rouge stared. Then she smirked. And _then_ it turned into a smile.

…And lastly she rolled her eyes.

"Took you long enough."

"Well," said Shadow, taking one last glance at the destroyed pawns before turning back to her. He smirked, too. "There were some… unforeseen delays, because of the war."

Rouge quirked a brow, still coasting on a wave of relief. "Very interesting stories, I'm sure. Now could you work your magic on Omega here? We don't have all day."

Shadow didn't answer, just stepped up to Omega, and looked at Rouge's unfinished repair work. He frowned, and pressed a couple of buttons, did something with that tiny keyboard thing and-

" _E-123 Omega, standby-mode – deactivated."_

"Finally," Rouge said, but with a smile, as Omega straightened up to all of his impressive height. "Good morning, Omega."

" _Rouge_ ," Omega answered in that wonderfully familiar monotone voice. " _Shadow. Greetings_."

"Hello, Omega." Even _Shadow_ smiled a little. "It's been a while."

…"It's been two months, you deserter!" Rouge snapped, before she could stop herself. "What were you _doing_?"

"Gathering intel," Shadow replied. "I… should have been here."

"You should've."

They stared at each other.

Shadow glanced away first.

And then Rouge punched him in the arm, and said, "Next time, I'm coming with you."


	4. Ghost Town

**A/N: thank you all so much for the feedback! :D You're all awesome! Anyway, here's the chapter-**

* * *

Sonic wakes after a thankfully dreamless sleep, to a thundering headache and rain pattering against the sides of the tent. His body feels sore and his mouth tastes salt, and it takes him at least ten seconds to figure out why it's raining. And then it washes over him: he's down on the surface.

Heading to Central – to _Metropolis_.

And yesterday-

…Well, new day, new possibilities.

He gets up, eventually, and discovers that Gadget has already left. Silver is still asleep, curled up in a sleeping bag with bandages wrapped all the way around his head, going underneath his chin and between his ears. White on white. Sonic just stares blankly at Silver for a moment, and then he turns around. He lets Silver have his rest, he decides, and goes outside into the rain.

Rex and Faith are busy taking down their tent, while Gadget fiddles with his communicator, looking drenched and irritated. They all look up when Sonic steps outside, grimacing at the water, and he sort of nods at Rex and Faith, they kind of wave at him, and then they continue fighting with their tent…

Gadget glances at him, and then back at their tent. "How is Silver?" he asks neutrally.

"Asleep."

"I better check up on his bandages," says Gadget.

"You should," says Sonic.

They stare at each other for all of ten seconds.

Gadget turns, and leaves, and Sonic glances after him as he slips inside of their tent. The rain splatters down in big, cold droplets, and for once Sonic thinks, that he doesn't mind it. The unpleasant wetness, the water clinging to your lashes. It makes you painfully aware of exactly where you are, of how reality is shaped…

Or, nevermind – he just got hit by a droplet _right_ in the eye.

* * *

 **Later…**

The road to Central City doesn't really exist anymore, so their way is wet and overgrown, as they try to make a path through the forest. And then suddenly, the trees thin out and more grass starts to appear, and then it's just a matter of minutes before they're standing in the suburbs. What _used_ to be the suburbs. The rain has turned into a mild drizzle, and the once peaceful neighbourhood has turned into a group of deserted buildings, wreckage, and crisp white stone walls blocking their access to the city.

Gadget glances behind him uneasily, and sees, some distance away, the forest they came from. Then there's a field, just grass and rain and bleary grey. Some sort of construction is smoking, closer to the city. He's standing on a solid white street paved with geometry, and the gate in front of them, towering well over their heads, is locked. It's got the whole deal – red lights, _enter password_ screen, speakers. All of it.

 _Could anyone possibly still live here?_

Silver, who's mostly alright except for his broken jaw, had insisted on coming with them, and Sonic had relented. Gadget was mostly just glad that idiot finally shut up, because every word he uttered could make the damage to his jaw worse… And _then_ suddenly it turned out that kid is actually a lot more dangerous than he looks like.

-The immovable gate, all smooth steel and no shortcuts, halts them in their tracks for fifteen minutes. Rex tries explosives, Faith and Gadget attempt hacking the console, and Sonic tries brute force. Yet it's _Silver_ who manages to psychically _pry the gate open_ , like it's a tin of tuna. After a few minutes of looking progressively more and more Done, he just snaps and throws his hands up. His eyes flash blue.

And then his _hands_ glow blue.

And then the _gate_ does, before it is wrenched open with the loudest screech of metal Gadget has ever heard-

Gadget can't stop himself from just _staring_ at Silver, as their group then proceeds into the city, and he catches Rex and Faith staring, too. But Sonic? Oh no, he looks as blasé as if he's already seen that happen a hundred times, and quickly helps Silver when the guy starts limping a bit…

They've got prodigies on their side.

And then Gadget thinks _, but he still lost to Infinite._ That's that, cold hard fact. It steals all the glamour away.

They walk into the city, wary. It's… quiet. At first, but then Gadget – he can hear something, far away. It sounds like fighting.

They hurry up, and see their first squadron of Egg Pawns. Sonic just ignores them, and leads them through a side alley. The streets are white and clean, sharp precise turns and wreckage being pushed aside by robots. The side alleys are just alleys, brown and grey and full of junk – Gadget steps on something squishy too, which smells terribly-

He pretends it's just garbage, and hurries on.

"Our objective," Sonic says, when they stop at a crossing, "Is to make contact with GUN. Anyone. We only need-" his face flashes through an expression so fast Gadget can't hope to identify it- " _Information_."

"If we're going to take the city back?" Faith makes it sound like a question.

"Precisely."

If they could take the capital… _It could turn the war in our favour._

But there is _not a chance_ they could do it now, right off the bat. You don't need to be a genius to figure that out. They need to take back at least a few other major cities first, they need-

Contact GUN. _Our objective._

"I-" Faith begins, blinking hard. "I have – _had_ relatives living here."

"I'm sorry." Sonic reaches out and tentatively puts a hand on her shoulder.

Gadget looks away. He spots another burning building, and a few grey skyscrapers with half-torn off ads plastered on them. Some sort of aircraft taking off a few blocks down the street. Faith murmurs a few more sentences, and sniffles. Sonic says something, quietly.

"So," Rex, suddenly standing next to Gadget, says. "You got any of your folks…?"

"No," Gadget says instinctively. He hasn't seen his mother in three months, but she can't be- "My family's from Empire City." _Which only improves chances of survival by-_ Quiet. They're on a mission. To be polite Gadget asks, "And you-?"

"I'm from Apotos, so," he does a shrug with one shoulder. "I don't know."

' _I don't know_.' The sentence that's haunted them for two months. Too little information, no communications up, _it's too dangerous_ \- Losing ground so fast it's nearly unbelievable. How are they going to _fix_ this? _–I don't know_.

Faith collects herself, and Sonic steps back.

He clears his throat. "All ready to go?"

Positive answers.

"Alright. Let's go." And they do.

The Night Babylon district is mostly deserted, except for worker crews of robots just starting to dismantle the storefronts, and they hurry past unlit neon signs and broken windows, the whole place a specific kind of eerie that's reserved for usually crowded places gone empty and dead. They slip through another alley, Sonic in front, and then they're suddenly in a street with broken cars and make-shift… barriers? Crates stacked against a wall. Broken robots, in heaps. There's a flickering _light_ , in a window on the fourth floor, in the building across the street…

And the muted _booms_ and crashes and yellsin the distance _,_ are louder than ever.

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

She hasn't used any eyeshadow in five weeks. Whoa. Objectively speaking, it's completely obvious, but she hadn't really realised it until now. Because no one had pointed it out until now, perhaps.

"Your face looks weird too," Rouge quips back, cheerily. "Is that a cut over your eyebrow?"

"Buzz bomber," Shadow answers. And then he sighs. "Rouge. If I-"

"Honey _, I got it_. You had to do it alone-" she peers out the window, and the squadron seems to be gone- "-and run away without us. I get it."

She glances at him, briefly, and Shadow's face is carefully blank. Like he's got things he needs to say, but doesn't want to open his mouth. Rouge looks back at the window, and then she vaults over the counter they were crouching behind. The robot squadron appears to have left this street, so they better get moving again. "Omega!" Rouge turns to the janitors' cupboard. "Get a move on!"

"Roger," Omega answers, and then the door to the janitors' closet slams open. Omega steps out, crushing three different kinds of plastic mops underfoot.

Shadow steps around the counter, looking disgruntled. Rouge ignores him and takes the lead, and thus Team Dark exits Deena's Clothes & Accessories, slipping out onto the street. They've been moving further and further out from Ivory Plaza District, and while the architecture looks mostly the same – beat up buildings, broken windows, and the occasional tidy storefront – the amount of people is steadily decreasing. Rouge hasn't seen anyone organic since two streets back…

They take a left turn at the next block, slip through some sort of shoddy barrier, and then – Rouge does a double take.

There's a group of people over there. No, _wait_ a goddamn minute here-

"Blue?" Rouge asks to the air, disbelief dripping off of the words. Shadow's frozen too. Omega seems to be zooming in with his optical sensors, or maybe he's just waiting to see what they're going to do next…

-That's when they get spotted.

By both Blue's group and a squadron of robots.

Omega opens fire, and Rouge launches herself up into the air. The robots start spilling in onto the street by the tens, and she uses some rather colourful language and throws one of her last explosives at them. The flash of fire is very satisfying, but then she has to do one of her more complicated nose-dives to avoid a rain of blaster bolts, and she starts fighting _for real._

She kicks a robot so hard it smashes into two others, and spins around to throw another explosive. A couple beats of her wings, and then she swoops down to kick another robot into the crowd, metal crunching and shrieking. Those _other kids_ wield some bright neon-coloured weapons (only Tails could have made that design) and after a moment of hesitation, they join in on the fray too. Sonic and Shadow zap around the battlefield, seemingly materialising next to you to take down a foe, and then they're gone again, appearing at the other end of the street just a second later…

Rouge scrapes her arm on something, but it doesn't register on what as she's already on the move again, dodging blaster fire. The robots are getting fewer and fewer, and the next time she pauses to breathe, there's only five left.

She doesn't even have time to move, before Omega obliterates them.

And then… it's quiet. No explosions ringing in your ears. No gunfire.

…She turns around, and just stares at Sonic, standing a little ways off. And yeah, it _is_ Sonic. No mistaking that smirk. And as for the rest of his group…

"Rouge!" Sonic greets happily, finally spotting her. He rushes up to her, and his team eventually follows, hesitantly tagging along. "Long time no see!"

 _You're really gonna use that line?_ Rouge thinks, giving him a _look_. She pretends that her insides aren't bubbling with emotions like hope, and surprise, and ' _the resistance aren't dead yet. We're not the only ones still fighting.'_ Not being able to leave the city nor contact anyone outside of it has the tendency to become… unnerving. Kind of like knowing you have a bounty on your head, but not knowing when someone will try and take you out.

Shadow takes a step to stand next to Rouge, light on his feet. "Rumour had it," he begins slowly. "That you had been 'killed off'?"

(Rumours Rouge hasn't heard in a while. Shadow doesn't sound surprised either, exactly, just… inquisitive. Waiting for an answer.)

"Me? _Dead_?" Sonic grins, a bit too brightly. "Oh, _please_ , like I would let that happen."

Shadow just looks at him, quietly. They stare into each other's eyes, Sonic uncharacteristically jittery. Rouge proceeds to communicate with the masses: "Mind introducing your new friends, Blue?"

-"Now thahs jus' rude, Rouge," answers another voice Rouge hasn't heard in- "Dontcha remember me?" And Silver the Hedgehog, with bandages wrapped all over his head, limps out from behind a barricade and glares at her. Evidently _he_ still remembers what happened at Sonic's 17th birthday party…

"I told you not to talk!" reprimands one of Sonic's other companions then, a red wolf whose glasses makes him look three years younger. "Your jaw is broken – do you want p-permanent damage or-?"

Sonic and Silver share a look.

Rouge knows that look. It's called _'stop bothering me and just let me be a self-sacrificing idiot'._

* * *

 **Right now…**

Combat gets easier and easier the less you think, so it's obvious that Sonic loves it. Gadget doesn't, not really. Maybe he should've tried going into strategy instead? Because then, at the very least, he wouldn't be down here trying to babysit this _infuriating_ -

"Your jaw will not in any way benefit from your talking," Gadget says, very calmly and clearly.

Silver holds up his hands, waves in an _okay okay_ gesture, nods-

"So what happened to him?" asks the bat lady conversationally, then, of Sonic. "…And to _you_?"

Sonic makes what can only be called a split-second panicked face, and then he relaxes. "Ah, this?" he says, and motions to his bandaged head with his _other_ hand. "Had a… run in with black-white-and-loathsome. You seen him? Fan of speeches, scar in the middle of his face, likes cubes?" –Silver makes a face behind Sonic's back.

The bat's lip curls upward in what has to be disgust. "The Doctor's new _General_?"

"Infinite," says the black hedgehog simply. His expression is… neutral.

"Great!" Sonic says. "We all know _him_. So-" he motions at Gadget, and at Rex and Faith, standing a couple of feet behind him. "This is Gadget, and those two are Rex and Faith." _Finally, introductions_. It was starting to feel a bit like being the new in-law on a family reunion. "And Spark Squad, meet Team Dark – This is Rouge, Shadow, and Omega."

Rouge (the bat) nods at them, Faith waves, and Gadget sort of nods, too. Shadow is impassive. The giant robot, Omega, just says in loud monotone, " _Inferior organic lifeforms, it is not a pleasure to meet you."_

Which-

Disrespectful?

"…So," Sonic begins anew. "How's GUN faring?"

"The situation is… rather bad," Shadow allows. He's still looking at Sonic.

Rouge, on the other hand, smiles and says sweetly, "GUN is currently managing like absolute _shit_."

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N: and I** _ **promise**_ **we're getting more stuff focused on Sonic & Shadow next chapter (along with some other Good Stuff, mwahaha)**


	5. Flood warning

**A/N: This chapter begins with a flashback that's necessary for the plot but not that interesting.**

* * *

 **Ten days ago…**

Darkness lay thick like snow over Mystic Jungle, and countless birds, critters and small mammals chittered in the night. In the distance you could hear the sound of construction machines, though nothing could be seen through the humid, inky dark of the forest. Somewhere among all of this, were acres upon acres of old ruins buried in the moss – and even more pillars that were still standing – and a number of brand new (still sparkling and smelling of paint) _buildings_.

A few of these were research facilities, sturdy grey buildings hiding in the foliage. The _rest_ of them were sickly bright attractions and neon-coloured casinos, large ads and random searchlights. One of those obnoxious searchlights then suddenly shut off, seemingly spontaneously…

At the foot of it, Shadow the Hedgehog was holding a bunch of wires and looking irritated.

 _Seems like the searchlights aren't connected_. He dropped the wires, and started skating again, drawing short-lived lines of fire in his wake. _No use disabling the lights one by one…_

Up ahead was the research facility, guarded by patrol squads of robots and some strange… being. It was tall and muscular, with red skin and some sort of horns. Shadow almost thought that it had to be an alien – but anyway, that being was none of his concern. Sneaking inside of the facility _was_.

He dropped his speed when he got closer, so as to not be seen. The night made his black fur an excellent camouflage, and robots were lousy guards no matter the circumstance. As long as that red being didn't have hearing more advanced than Shadow's own, this operation should run smoothly.

He got all the way to one of the doors before anything troublesome happened, and even then, it was only the fact that the door was locked which was the problem.

So, he broke it.

…Discreetly.

Sneaking through the facility was something in between a fun challenge and extremely irritating, but at the very least he didn't have to creep around for long. He rather quickly found a room with a lot of monitors, computers and a swivel chair, and proceeded to screw around with the systems. Predictably, the files with the information he wanted were locked… So instead of trying to break the password, he just downloaded all of the files of the computer into an USB-stick. He then hid the stick in his glove, and he would've wiped the computer clean too if he hadn't heard noises from the door and _where-_

He tore the hatch to the vents open and slipped inside, putting the grates back in place a split-second before the door slid open.

A squad of robots marched in. They fiddled with the systems for four, five minutes, and Shadow focused on keeping his breathing quiet and even. Lastly, the robots marched out again, and the door closed with a click. The lights switched off. Darkness spilled inside of the room like it was a physical thing.

Red and blue lights dotted the computerscape, and they were enough for Shadow to see by. He dropped out of the vent, and put the grates back as neatly as he could. And then he slipped back outside, lights momentarily blinding, and skated hurriedly for the exit…

* * *

 **Presently…**

Ration bars taste kind of like dirt, or occasionally more like wood, but food's food and war is war. Or so Gadget keeps telling himself. It's not like he was ever very good at cooking, but- well. (He very firmly does _not_ think about how much he loved his mother's cooking, how she taught him how to bake when he was six) …And, ration bars are made to give you as many nutrients as possible in just a tiny bar, so. Efficient system.

Silver can't actually eat that well, so he just sits around while the rest of their seven person group eats tasteless rations. Wait, no- they are _eight_ persons. Gadget forgot about Omega. Though it's not like Omega is eating anything, either. They talk, a bit. Gadget mostly listens to the hum of conversation, Sonic talking to those _other_ people, but then-

Silence.

He glances up, and everyone else is staring too. Rex opens his mouth, but Sonic's hand shoots up and the coyote closes his mouth again. Gadget's ears twitch. Something cold creeps across his spine…

They're all looking around now, food forgotten. No one utters a single word. Sonic, though? He just stands there, leaning slightly to the right – and Shadow's frozen, too.

…Five seconds later, and Gadget's brain spits out the answer: _Chaos energy_.

They're _feeling something-_

There's something coming.

A manhole explodes. Gadget hadn't even noticed it before the cover was flung ten feet up in the air and a literal geyser of water shot up through it, their group yelling and stumbling away, covering their faces. Gadget almost stumbles over a broken _something_ , wiping his glasses furiously-

Someone yells, " _Chaos_!" and Gadget is tempted to start swearing too-

-they scramble for cover behind an overturned car, and Gadget ends up crouching together with Faith and Rouge. "Weapons ready," the bat commands, and they both draw their Wispons. Gadget looks over the top of the car and down at the street, spots the others, spots Sonic charging at – at a humanoid… thing made of water. He can see its _brain_ from here. "What is that?" he can't help but blurting out, sounding horrified even to his own ears.

Rouge glances up too, and- "That's- wait, _what_?"

Sonic exclaims then, and it echoes across the street, " _Chaos_! What have you done to the master emerald?"

-slowly, with a terrifying lurch in his stomach, Gadget realises. _Oh gods._ This is insane. This is- "Is that," he rasps. "Is that- is it – is that _Chaos_? God of- of-"

"Wow," Rouge breathes, both eyebrows raised. "The Doctor's really done it, this time."

Gadget wants to scream. " _That's_ your reaction? That's- _it's Chaos!"_ Everyone had to learn the myths in school, about the echidnas and the gods, Solaris, Gaia and _Chaos_. God of water, of destruction, of-

"I've seen worse," Rouge says. And as if to prove a point, every manhole along their street explodes.

There are way more manholes than Gadget thinks there should be, and sewer water sprays up all around them, raining down on the street. Gadget's vision transforms into a filthy rainstorm with water dripping into his eyes, and then finally the adrenaline kicks in. Not that it helps with anything, but Gadget feels as if his shock is more validated now. (They're supposed to fight _a god_?!)

He swipes at his glasses, smears more mud in his face, and tries to survey the street.

Water is still spewing up from a few manholes, and the street is starting to flood. The barricades and broken cars have all been washed to the sides and are now trapping the water in the middle, and it's still raining in irregular sprays. The – the thing, the god, _Chaos_ – is standing right in the middle of the pandemonium, and Omega is shooting at it. Either Silver or Rex or both are hiding behind another heap of scraps, and Sonic-

There's a blur of colour, and then there's a lot of water.

Someone yells something, and then a carwreck spontaneously launches itself straight at Chaos. Gadget thinks he sees the tell-tale blue glow before the car is sliced in half, but there's really too much going on to be sure. The water is rising faster and faster-

"Hey rookie, we have to leave!" Rouge snaps at him, supporting a very pale Faith. "Leave the gods to the 'hogs, that's the first rule."

Gadget opens his mouth defiantly – and concedes. "Alright," he says, and quickly helps Rouge with Faith. Tactical retreat, fine, but how are they going to reach- "We have to split up," Gadget realises. "There's basically no way for us to – to reach Sonic and the others." Rouge grunts an affirmative, and the three of them hurry toward the end of the street…

Brilliant. Gadget, Rouge and Faith hurry to the right, while Sonic and the others go to the left, with Chaos wreaking havoc in the middle. Now all they need is a dead-end, and they'll be done for…

* * *

 **Right now…**

Enraged confusion? Annoyance? Whatever it is Sonic's feeling, it tells him very clearly to go plant a shoe right in Chaos' face. _Follow your dreams, am I right_? "Silver," he says, spinning around to point at him. "Take Rex and Omega. I'm going to try something out." _By myself_. He doesn't wait for an answer, just sets off in a run, water splashing up around his ankles. Shouts follow him, he ignores them-

-until Shadow skids and stops in front of him, cutting off his path. " _What_ are you thinking?" he asks sharply, and Sonic tries to sidestep him but Shadow's one step ahead of him.

"Me? I'm thinking that Chaos' brain is its weak spot."

"And you just hope you'll succeed on your own?"

"Well, "Sonic shrugs. "It's not like I could ask _you_."

The water is up to his knees now, and Sonic's starting to feel uneasy. Chaos is silent but the water is not, and it roars as it gushes on, cold and muddy and rising, and Sonic just really hopes that Shadow will raise to the bait.

Shadow gives him a _look_ , eyes narrowed. "You can't swim."

"But I _can_ run," Sonic quips back. And then he bolts around Shadow so fast he doesn't manage to stop him, and goes straight for Chaos. _C'mon, Faker…_

-And Shadow skates up along him, liquid hissing underneath the fire of his shoes. "This is not a good strategy," he calls angrily, and Sonic doesn't want to see his point but _damn_ is the water getting deep-

Chaos is right up ahead.

Sonic makes his decision, surges forward and _jumps_. Everything narrows down to him and his racing heartbeat, the air and the rain, and to Chaos with a hyperfocus on its brain. Unfortunately it turns out that waterlogged hedgehogs are terrible projectiles, and Sonic suddenly recalls why exactly he went _Super_ against Perfect Chaos-

It's a spectacular miss, but mostly because Chaos sprays him out of the sky like when you aim a garden hose at a fly.

Someone yells, but Sonic doesn't catch the words, splashing down onto the street and swallowing a mouthful of water. The water floods up over his face, and then he can't breathe because he's underwater and he's drowning and it's-

 _Trapped, drowning, alone-_

Red lights. The static of water in his ears.

Unable to breathe.

 _Water, water, water-_

Something grabs his arm and bodily hauls him out of the water, and he's coughing and sputtering and shaking and utterly drenched. He looks up and it's Shadow, of course it's Shadow, and _oh my_ that's quite a look on him-

"You fucking idiot," he snarls, and Sonic's pulled back into the present. "We have to leave," Shadow says, and that's both the start and the end of the discussion. The water – and _shit_ , Sonic really cannot start panicking here – is up to their waists, surging and angry, foam and trash bubbling up. They both are completely soaked but Sonic doesn't think he's injured, and he's quick to stagger along after Shadow.

A wave crashes against them, and Sonic falls – but Shadow catches him. There's house after house lining the street, and Shadow drags them toward the closest one. It's moderately drier up on the porch, and Sonic stands and shivers as Shadow does something to the lock of the door, watching Chaos stalk toward them. The god is moving slowly, carefully taking each step as if its balance is off, like its biding its time, and the water moves around it like a cape. Like an extension of its body.

" _There_ ," comes a quiet sound, and Sonic turns. Shadow's pushing the door of the house open, and they quickly rush inside, water seeping in. Shadow slams the door shut, and then- then they're looking at each other, quills dripping on the dusty linoleum. All sounds feel so far away, and it's only their ragged breathing filling the silence.

-And then they both spot the stairs.

"Up?" Sonic rasps. Shadow looks him right in the eye, and next they're both moving, climbing the floors up to second, third, fourth floor…

It sounds like water crashing against the bottom of the stairs.

And then they're on the fifth and last floor, looking out through a broken window at the swirling mass of water that once was a street. The skies are beginning to clear and sunset light gleams off of the crisp white spires, the whole imperial capital laid out below them…

And Chaos is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N:** _also shit I forgot to mention: Shadow doesn't work for GUN in this AU, because Sonic didn't let him fall from ARK, thus he never lost his memory, didn't fight for Black Doom nor need any info from him, and didn't want to join GUN either since here he was able to make a more informed decision than in canon._


	6. Alone in a danger zone

**A/N:** _oh gosh this is- unedited? hnng, it should look fine. if there's spelling errors, feel free to message me so i can fix them! And as always, my dear wonderful readers, your comments give my life in this cold hard world. much love to you all!_

* * *

It's eerily quiet, considering the circumstances. Sonic is shivering. The water creature is gone. Shadow quietly surveys the situation, and deeming them safe for now, decides to voice a thought that has been bothering him for a while: "There's something odd about this 'Chaos'."

"Hmm?" Sonic glances up. "Chaos? Oh. Thought it was just me."

Shadow continues, "It's – as if he's not even made of Chaos energy." Pause. He muses out loud, "But if not Chaos energy…" _Then what_? It's so similar it's putting him on edge. A masterfully crafted replica, yet with powers so vast and… _And_. Shadow tears off his glove, feels for the tiny hidden pocket on the inside, and gingerly extracts _something_ from it. That something being a small USB-stick, which if damaged by the water has the potential to condemn them all-

It's safe. It's dry, thank all the deities Shadow doesn't believe in, and if the USB truly has sustained any damage beyond water exposure…

-He won't be able to tell until they try it.

Carefully, he puts the USB back where it was, and slips the glove back on under his limiter. He looks up just as Sonic says, "What was that?"

"These rings?" Shadow replies, regretting it even as he speaks- "Didn't I tell you they were friendship bracelets from Amy?" -His poker face is impeccable.

Sonic's is not, and the expression he makes almost makes Shadow falter. "That's no- wait. No, what? _What_?" He stares at Shadow. "Is- was that _a joke_?" And Shadow thinks of a reply. The information he has gathered is safe, and Shadow is feeling less broody than usual, so what he actually says is,

"No. It's a fact – I never joke."

Sonic stares, but the corner of his mouth twitches. "Who are you and what have you done to Shadow the Hedgehog?" He asks, and his eyes show a spark of mischief and Shadow feels-

 _This is getting too far_. "It was an USB," Shadow says strictly, back to business. "It's holding vital information." The Doctor's plans. And if not his plans, his research. Files upon files, hidden behind codes and passwords Shadow hasn't had the time to try and crack yet. _Vital information_ , he repeats silently, and the tiny USB feels like it burns through his glove with its weight.

Sonic gives him one last look, and suggests, but not grudgingly, "Don't lose it, then."

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

The water still nipped at their heels, and Gadget was starting to realise _why_ , but he really, really didn't want to. Faith's head was bleeding but at least her face wasn't quite as ashen anymore, and she had started limping along on her own. Rouge just marched on, charting out their course, and Gadget followed with Faith, looking over his shoulder. Again and again. They'd gotten at least two whole streets away, and yet-

 _And yet_ , anxiety whispers. Logic hisses, _the water shouldn't be leaking this far…_

Gadget has a number of bad feelings about this.

-They walk on. Construction robots in large swarms are working on something white and high farther down the street, so Rouge turns a corner. They all turn a corner, and Gadget glances back over his shoulder, can't help but do.

A creature moves at the beginning of the street, and his hand flies to his Wispon-

They turn that corner, and Gadget hurries on.

From that point on, he thinks that they are all aware that they are being hunted. He listens intently despite his efforts not to, and can almost imagine he hears something. Something else trailing after them, something other than their breathing, loud and harsh, something else than their footsteps and the sounds of construction, loud clangs and the whirr of machines. He's starting to shiver from the cold. And they walk faster.

-until water explodes out of the alley they were planning to take, and Gadget throws himself out of the way. There's no use pretending otherwise: his first instinct is to hide, to protect, to help. It's a mindset which is not helping him right now, and he scrambles for his Wispon. As soon as it's in his hand, he lets loose a burst of fire.

Steam pours into the air, and a great hiss drowns all other sounds out.

 _Bad idea_ , and he wipes at his glasses, desperate for a better view. He's dripping water but he thinks the spray has stopped, at least, and then he hears a yell. _It's anger_ , he realises after the first sting of panic, and then he jams his glasses back on.

Rouge slams a foot into Chaos' head just as Gadget gets his vision back, and he instinctively ducks as Chaos is thrown backwards. The water monster doesn't make a sound, but it's obvious it's displeased as water wells up again, surging in and up. Gadget really, really hopes he can fry it, or else-

 _What else?_

Faith is crouching against a wall, her Lightning Wispon useless unless she'd want to electrocute them all. Gadget is on the other side of the road, doing nothing, and Rouge is attempting to force back Chaos into the alley. Gadget assumes. But Chaos is lashing out, and water shoots up-

Rouge veers to the side in the nick of time, and dives just as a wave crashes down over the road. Water sprays up and Gadget shields his face, droplets raining over him. His mind is running a mile a minute. Rouge was aiming at Chaos' head earlier – earlier, and then, what, _what_ \- Its head. _Its head its brain._ Gadget can't believe how slow he-

He looks up again, water swirling around him and tugging at his legs, and Chaos stands up too, right across from him. There's an alley between them, but no rain, and Gadget takes aim and lets his grappling hook fly.

-There's a wet, ugly sound, and Gadget operates on autopilot and yanks the rope toward himself, hard.

When he looks across the alley next, Chaos has fallen, and the water is dissipating. Oh. Oh. _Oh gods_ , what did he- Gadget drops the grappling hook, its black rope still bridging the distance between him and Chaos' prone form, and then he staggers back until his back's to the wall. He covers his face with his hands, and breathes. Make the air go in and out. _Breathe_.

* * *

Their little group somehow pulls itself together. "Hey, rookie," Rouge says, seeing his expression as they're leaving. "You did great." It's a compliment, but Gadget makes a noncommittal sound in reply. He doesn't want his grappling hook anymore, though it's fine seeing as Faith has one too. It's- it's gross to think of what he did, but he can't help but look back inside the alley as they turn to go-

Gadget can't see Chaos. But on the other hand, he really doesn't want to, and so he hurries on and tries to forget. He's cold and soaked and shivering, but they all are, so what's the use in complaining?

* * *

 **Right now…**

They smash a window and climb out, stand on the narrow windowsill together, five storeys above the ground. Sonic's stomach flips as he leans out across the gap, looking down at the gushing water. It's exhilarating.

"Don't fall." Shadow says. "I'd hate to fish out your body."

"Gee, thanks man," Sonic replies, but steps back nevertheless, and looks out at the roof in front of them. It's one storey lower than where they're currently perching, but that's not a problem. The risk that they miss and plummet into the flooded street way below them _is_. Sonic says, "I'll jump first," doesn't wait for arguments and crouches down, before springing up again and _flying_.

-There's one perfect second in which he's _soaring_ , suspended above the ground and the water, and everything makes sense. There is nothing but the present, the air and him-

 _Boom_ , and it's over, and now he's crouching on the roof. He stands up and looks, just when Shadow jumps after him. A ray of sunlight hits Shadow in the jump, and for a split-second he looks as if he's in his Super form, radiant, glowing; high in the air with the universe at his fingertips. Sonic wants to shield his eyes, irrationally-

And then it's over, Shadow landing next to him, roof shaking ever so slightly with the hit.

"So what next? Down through the building now or-?" Sounds solid enough.

Shadow nods, and jerks his head to the left. Sonic looks past him, and there's a trapdoor. Neat. "Great," he says, and next they're prying it open and slipping inside. It's dark, almost no windows, and there's garbage in the stairs. Or at any rate, Sonic is going to firmly pretend it _is_ only garbage, and ignores it as good as he can on the way down. Shadow climbs down after him, and it's silent apart from their shuffling…

And it smells bad. Sonic ignores that too, and hurries faster.

They reach the floor, and the door won't open. They smash another window, this one at the back, and clamber out. They find themselves in a tiny yard which is only mildly clammy, and surrounded on all sides by a tall brick wall. Sonic makes a running start and leaps over it, and Shadow follows…

Another alley. This one has water up to their ankles, and Sonic makes a grimace and grumbles, "His re-enacting of the 'Square Flooding really needs some work."

"We should find the others." Shadow's voice is calm, his expression focused. (Boring.) Sonic hums in answer, and starts walking. His shoes are already soaked through to his bones, but the water is still disgusting… And yeah. Finding Silver and the others is what they should do next, then find Rouge and Gadget, and then… and then…

They walk, and the water splashes up at their feet.

It's just the two of them, alone in a danger zone. He hasn't seen Shadow for months, and this feels like a strange hole in the timeline: just them, wading through a flooded alley. Bizarre scenario? Check. Absolute silence? Check. Probability of dying? Check.

-of course, Sonic looks up just then and glances across the crossing to another street, spotting a flash of white. He stops, looks closer, and it's Silver. Omega's dark shape looms next to him, and a second white shape is close by…

"There's the cavalry," Sonic says, sounding smug. Shadow turns and looks at him, and then he very deliberately rolls his eyes. Sonic grins. And then he yells, "Oi, SILVER!"

And the three figures all perk up, and start running in their direction. Sonic rushes to meet them, and even Shadow tags along. Their groups collide in the middle of the street, and Sonic's almost surprised at how relieved he feels, seeing them all here, alright. His emotions are all over the place since- since, _we don't talk about it_ , but. Well, they're all fine. He greets them, Shadow hangs back, Silver's not allowed to talk, and Omega doesn't have much to say. Rex bumps fists with him though, so Sonic's content.

… _Except_ where's Gadget? Rouge and Faith?

"Have you guys seen Rouge? Or Faith, Gadget?"

"No," Rex answers. "But they should turn up in-"

" _Blue_!" And Sonic grins, because the timing is perfect. Rouge steps out another alley, smiling smugly. After her trails Gadget, looking lost and soaked, and Faith, bleeding but otherwise alright. And Sonic's heart feels lighter than it has in days...

"Rouge," Shadow acknowledges.

"Hello," Rouge says.

They stare each other down. Sonic watches.

"I truly regret-"

"It's fine." Rouge's sudden reply seems to confuse Shadow, and she sighs dramatically. "You owe me one, but it's fine. Team Dark's fine."

-Shadow's expression is one Sonic hasn't seen before, and it seems almost private. Like Sonic shouldn't look. He gets how it feels to reunite a team after a long while – Knuckles never was one to leave his island more than was necessary. Your team… it's more than just your team, if you're Sonic the Hedgehog. If you're an orphan kid, if you're the last of your people. If you're the only one of your kind…

It's the first time Sonic has been homesick, outside of his cell on the Death Egg.


	7. I'm losing it

Turns out trying to fit fifteen people inside a shuttle the size of the _Bluejay_ was a bit of a bad idea. It's cramped, it's awkward, and Sonic doesn't even know the names of the seven people of Spark Squad who stayed behind with the shuttle. They're a mixed bunch for sure, and Omega has to crouch in Sleep Mode beneath a seat to fit in at all, while the pilot gets three people sitting with him, one of whom is Rouge and who also insists on backseat-piloting, and meanwhile Faith occupies _two_ seats because she's unconscious again…

Sonic himself is shoved between a wall and a hard place, because he's sort of been aiming to avoid Gadget, but now he's almost sitting in the poor guy's lap. _Dammit_.

"So, I heard that you defeated Chaos?" There. That's a conversation starter.

"I guess." Gadget isn't even looking at him.

Sonic frowns. "You did great – Faith is the only injured one."

"Yeah," Gadget says. The air feels even staler than before. "Did we complete the mission?"

"Yeah!" Sonic says, ignoring how obviously Gadget changed the topic. "We got the intel – so-" So now the resistance would have a better shot at reclaiming the city – _and_ they did rendezvous with Shadow, too. Shadow was always good to have on your side (as proven by the Black Arms War) and Rouge and Omega would be incredibly valuable in making some battle-plans for taking back Central City. So, they got all the information they wanted…

-but it'll be who-knows-how-long for GUN to starve and die, before they can liberate the city.

"I wish – we should've tried getting GUN out of there, too." _Or what remains of their forces, anyway…_

"I know." Gadget sighs, and for a brief moment Sonic feels as if they understand each other better than before. Same goals, some morals. Walked the same dead streets. The moment passes and Gadget says resignedly, "But – well, we didn't have a lot of options, did we?"

 _Did they?_ No. Not really, seeing as they had to do a Chaos control while using Shadow's emerald to even be able to _leave_ the city, the amount of robots steadily increasing the closer to the wall you got. Security must've caught them – probably when Chaos flooded half the shopping district…

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Sonic replies, eventually. Words start to feel emptier the more you repeat them. "We'll just have to win this war as fast as possible, am I right?" he looks at Gadget. Gadget just looks at him flatly. _Flatly_. Flat words, flat people. Nothing seems to matter when you've already lost, and it all just seems so incredibly funny. _Guys, what's the point?_ They will die. We will die. Everything will— and _then_ Sonic lurches away from that edge, reels back from the abyss, always appalled at himself.

 _(it's not funny anymore)_

Sonic says, convincing himself, "We _will_ do this. We _always_ come through in the end – we're going to make it. We're going to win this."

 _(but at what cost?)_

Gadget lets out a deep sigh, but then he smiles tentatively. "If you say so…"

"It's gonna be alright," Sonic says, and grins, because if he didn't believe in hope, didn't believe in his friends, then he would probably be long dead by now. He's _got_ to hope, that's what it is. He's exhausted and has bruises in several places, the high of battle just starting to wear down, but it's only a matter of time until they're all safely back at the ARK. _The_ team, reunited. Even a vagabond misses their home when it's storming…

* * *

 **Elsewhere…**

They're on the way. Tails feels as if he can finally relax, seeing as he had overseen the upgrades for their shuttle (072-BJ) himself, and there's not really anything in space that can harm them, anyway. It's one less worry for him, so he can check that off the list. Unfortunately his list is very long, and in the personal section Sonic's wellbeing is number one. Because _dang_ it, Sonic is obviously _not_ okay; he's as much alright as Eggman is a good person.

He's missing fingers. He's been through torture up on the Death Egg, and Tails feels so overwhelmingly guilty that he couldn't find the place sooner, couldn't help him defeat Infinite before it all began. That the war stole all his time and energy, and that he thought Sonic was dead. He thought Sonic was alive and that everyone was lying, he thought Sonic was dead but that was _impossible_ , _there's no way-_ It was incomprehensible. Everything would fall apart like a house of cards if that was the truth. So, therefore it was a lie.

Sonic is always there, you can always count on him. He can't be killed. That's facts of the universe, and Tails knows all rules can be broken but _he could not be gone_.

-And then the resistance had recruited Tails, because obviously. Thinking about life? Completely overrated. Tails had upgraded the whole radar system on ARK in less than a day, and next there was the air-recycler, the temperature controls, the shielding system which needed a brutal rewrite of the whole system, and then there was the power plant and all the lights on the fourth floor and lagging doors and-

It felt like the ground had been ripped away beneath his feet when they caught wind of where Sonic was held. That he was a prisoner, period. All the sleepless nights of staring at a screen, staring into space thinking _what-if, if-only_ , had finally caught up to him and punched him right in the face. Now? There's hope. There's evidence. _Of course_ Sonic was alive, he's unbeatable, a living legend, Tails' big brother who's not allowed to die…

…And now he's out in the open again, immediately getting himself sent out on a mission, as soon as he and Knuckles were done playing hot potato with the responsibility of being Commander of the resistance.

But he's not okay. Tails caught him staring once, just standing at the counter, a broken glass on the floor. He was frozen and staring into nothing, his expression…

-Tails is better with machines than with people, but shoot. _That_ wasn't a good thing in anyone's book. The worst thing? Tails doesn't know if he can help. Another bad thing? Tails has so many other responsibilities – head of engineering & programming, assistant strategist and occasional leader of Fox Squad – that he doesn't think… he can't put time on it. He can't afford to be there for Sonic like he should because guess what? The lights went out again, this shuttle needs repairing, the entire motion controls system in the bridge just. Shut down.

And the problem is, that they are going about the situation as if it is still just guerrilla fighting, one on one, when at this point it's already a full-scale war. Small groups are perfect for the situation but right now they're forgetting how _many_ people they have, how many people that need help. It's just not a weird monster or a wicked machine they're fighting this time – it's a whole _army_.

Tails doesn't really sleep anymore. His schedule is full until next holiday, and he knows, logically, that coffee is bad for eleven-year-olds but it's just that kind of year, isn't it?

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

"-This is your pilot speaking: we're going to dock in fifteen minutes, please sit tight."

The conversation muted for a moment, and then it restarted, the atmosphere subtly changed. Silver himself could sadly not participate: his jaw hurt and was starting to get kind of swollen. And Gadget would have his hide if he even _thought_ about speaking, and… well, about the thinking, Silver still hadn't managed to figure out how telepathy worked.

Everyone insisted that _wow, you're totally able to do telepathy too, right?_ He was not. Likely, he would never even get the hang of it… he thought. What are the chances, anyway?

Silver would like to talk to Shadow, though, who was sitting next to him. Shadow seemed to have his life more together than Silver – how did he do it? The focus? The ever-present calm? And don't even get him started on Espio; that guy is just… so collected. A soothing presence to be around. He had made Silver mint tea and taught him how to meditate. Meditating helped Silver _so much_ , and he had instantly liked Espio after that, nevermind his initial suspicion.

(he's head of the intel division, so obviously Silver joined that branch)

…But Shadow, though. He had an air of importance to him. And it was more of an 'I hold the fate of the world in my hands' kind of thing, than a 'my ego could fuel a spacecraft' thing. There was also the very juicy information he no doubt had gathered, and Silver knew _just_ how desperate the resistance were for information that could help them win. Also, Silver was curious. And bored. Not-talking is boring.

"Five minutes left." –it takes Silver a moment to realise that it was Shadow who said that, despite Shadow glancing at him.

Silver has to settle for nodding excitedly, because what else is he supposed to do? Text him?

Shadow looks at him for a long, tense moment. And then he says, "Have you ever been to Soleanna?"

Silver shakes his head for 'no.'

"Hmm." Shadow looks away, and doesn't say anything more. Silver doesn't mind that much though, because now the ARK is so close he can almost count all the unfinished rails on its bottom, can almost count the tiny glittering windows. He can feel Shadow looking past his head and out the window, and he pushes back the urge to prepare for a fight. The ARK is like a giant, looming moon above them-

-until it swallows them up, and spits them out in a cavernous hangar stuffed with shuttles and ships.

"This is your pilot: we've docked. Please wait while the doors open…"

* * *

 **Moments later…**

In the Great Room, a stressed-looking chinchilla informs Commander Knuckles and Amy Rose that the _Bluejay_ is back: Sonic is back.

In the hangar, Tails almost hits his head on the underside of a ship, poking his head out of its guts to watch, just as the _Bluejay's_ engines die.

In the shuttle 072-BJ " _Bluejay_ ", Sonic the Hedgehog is almost twitching in his seat, waiting. Waiting.

Next to him, Gadget worries. He's worried about the future, he's expectant. He's hoping for things.

Next to them, Shadow fingers the USB still tucked into his glove, lost in thoughts.

Next to him, Silver sits and waits, excited to be back. He can't wait to get his jaw fixed, among other things.

-The doors of the _Bluejay_ slide open with a faint hiss, and the pilot lets out a sigh of relief to finally be rid of Rouge and her teasing. Sonic is the first one out of the shuttle, hopping out with an easy confidence that is almost faked, only to immediately be tackled by a golden blur with two tails. "Sonic!" Tails exclaims happily, hugging him, and _shit_ , soon even _Tails_ will be taller than Sonic.

"Buddy, pal, hey-" Sonic lets out a breathless little laugh. "-you're strangling me."

"Am not," Tails argues. "Amy told me to aim for the neck – what kind of amateur do you think I am?"

Sonic grins, and then he reaches out very deliberately, and ruffles Tails' bangs.

"No fair!" Tails slinks away from him and steps back, carding a hand through his hair. Sonic grins wider.

"No fair? There's only the laws of the jungle now." –Tails gives him a look. Sonic reconsiders his joke, and says instead, "And guess who we found?"

"Eggman Nega?" Tails jokes.

"Better!" Sonic makes a grand gesture to the mouth of the ship, and says, "Behold – Team Dark!"

-as if on cue, Rouge steps out the _Bluejay_ , looking like a popstar exiting her private helicopter. And after her trails Shadow, Omega, and lastly Silver, sticking out with his light fur.

Sonic glances at Tails, and Tails' expression… it's changed somewhat. Like he's planning ahead, like he's gotten a new puzzle piece. It's a puzzle, all of it. The war, the strategies, the stars and the ARK and Egghead's new power source – why Shadow's way of saying 'Chaos energy' sounds _cool_ when everyone else just makes it sound dire, or stupid, or like utter nonsense techno-babble. Sonic's happiness feels almost like something he has to maintain nowadays: two spoonfuls of hope, a cup of meaningless optimism, a pinch of genuinely funny jokes…

 _Artificial_. He really wants his joy to be natural this time.

Tails says, voice quiet with its sudden seriousness, "They've got information?"

"They've got it."

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N:** _-_ _ **If you**_ _ **want** to divide this story into parts, then congratulations! We're through Central City Zone, now up for arc 2, space shenanigans :D_

 _-Also if any of you like infidget and didn't see it yet, I posted a short fic about them like two weeks ago_


	8. World-shattering

**A/N:** _what is this… ten… reviews? Wow. Alright, that's just incredible – thanks so much everyone! :D_

* * *

The faint blue glow of a screen lights a dozen faces, all crowding around Tails the engineer and his Miles Electric. Tails is glad he installed an USB-port to his device before the war broke out, since he'll be needing it now. The door to the meeting room is locked, and they've dubbed this an impromptu emergency meeting, calling in all the higher-ups of the resistance still hanging around on the ARK. They're sixteen people in total – Sonic's temporary squad had to leave, seeing as none of them have yet been promoted to Squad leader…

The Miles Electric whirrs softly, and Tails fumbles with the USB-stick, scratching the side of it, before finally plugging it in. A blue bubble appears on the screen:

 _[Plug-in detected. Open?_ _ **Yes**_ _. No.]_

Tails touches the ' _yes'_ icon and carefully opens the folder…

 _[Password needed_.]

Someone behind him curses, softly. Tails ignores them, and says out loud, "I'm going to have to hack this. It might… take a while."

There's some shuffling sounds, and Ray offers, "I'll bring more coffee."

"Great," Mighty says, and waves him off.

Amy pipes up: "Hey could you please snag some ration bars for me? Thanks."

-There's a string of food 'n drinks requests which Tails quickly tunes out, focusing on the files instead. _Password? Pfft_. It's all smooth sailing until suddenly, the files decide that they've had enough. They seem to have started eating themselves since he isn't getting them up and opened fast enough, and now it's Tails' turn to swear, chewing on his lip while typing frantically. _Dammit-_

"Tails? Do you wa-"

"Shut up," Tails says on reflex. _He only needs to get-_

 _There_.

Tails slumps in his seat, relief flaring quick and bright. "It's done," he says, and immediately all conversation dies and the attention returns to him and his Miles Electric, like a laser focusing. On the screen, documents and, strangely enough, hundreds of pictures, are uploading rapidly, and it takes three seconds for Tails to get curious enough to lean down over his screen again.

"Is there what we need?"

"Are the files undamaged?"

"I'm checking," Tails replies. "And I'm sorry for snapping, Amy-"

"It's fine!"

Tails nods, and continues scrolling. There's files upon files upon files. Though it's really strange how much… "This is crazy. He's got like ten terabytes of selfies in here…"

"What."

Tails shrugs helplessly.

He reaches the documents. ' _P Ruby test #8'_ sounds good, so Tails opens that one. Tails prides himself on being a fast reader, so it's but a moment later that he announces to a room so tension-filled you could cut the air with a dull butter-knife: "Eggman's new power source? That thing he used to overthrow the United Federation? With the ability Infinite likes to flaunt? …Apparently it's called the _Phantom Ruby_."

* * *

 **An hour later…**

They've written it all down on paper. Sonic's hand aches, and the table is covered in sheets and notes and other loose papers, soon to be shoved into folders. According to Tails it was way too dangerous to just leave the files lying around on the computer – they had to write it all down, so that that way, they could only be destroyed if a fire broke out on ARK. There's a lot of nonsensical technobabble he has copied, and then a few things that _did_ make more sense…

…the Phantom Ruby sounds like really bad news.

-They're all lounging around on old plastic chairs, while Tails does something on his Miles Electric. The fact that Sonic could, right now if he wanted, reach out and pat Tails on his shoulder almost jolts him when he realises it. He's on the ARK. They're all on the ARK. Eggman and Infinite can't reach them out here… they're in space. Sonic can't imagine how anyone could grow up in a place like this, isolated, miles above the planet…

Tails' voice breaks the quiet. "I've… got a message?" He sounds oddly confused, and for no reason at all, a chill goes down Sonic's spine.

"Is it from the Soleanna battalion?" Tekno the Canary asks. They've been waiting to hear from Soleanna, apparently.

"No," Tails answers. People are starting to get up from their chairs, and Sonic catches Shadow's eye, sees Knuckles glancing at him. He's starting to feel anxious, and there is no logical reason for it. Sonic is never anxious, he didn't use to ever be. The war to take back the planet: brings all kinds of new and awful experiences!

"Tails?" Amy presses, already reaching for her enormous Piko-piko hammer.

"I… oh." Tails' face goes very, very blank. He says, neutrally, "Future emperor Eggman wants to… chat with Commander Knuckles. Of the – the resistance."

A quiet falls on the room like slamming the lid on a box.

 _Well_ , thinks Sonic. Now the other shoe has finally dropped.

Knuckles says, after a moment, "Is there anything mentioning _what_ he wants to discuss, Tails?"

"Surrender." Tails looks up, and stares at Knuckles. "He wants us to… negotiate our surrender. And he wants the ARK."

 _He knows we're on the ARK_.

The sentence echoes through the room even though no one has said it. It goes through their heads, it slinks between the legs of the chairs and rustles through their papers. Knowing what and who their opponent is makes Sonic's fear dissipate, and anger and resolve sharpens inside him like a knife. Egghead's found their location? _And?_ What's he gonna do about it?

Knuckles says, calmly, "Can I tell him something?"

"He's got a video-chat connection open," Tails says helpfully.

"Ray, switch on the projector."

There's a great shuffle when everyone moves their chairs so that they're facing the wall, and then a picture is projected onto aforementioned wall. It's Tails' screen. He opens a window, and some sort of messaging program fills the wall. There's an ' _accept call_ ' icon, and Tails picks it. There's a noise as if several people draw breath simultaneously, and then there's a video.

It's a room. Everything is in shades of white and grey, and in the middle of the tableau is a swivel chair. And in that chair sits Dr Eggman, Ivo Robotnik; madman, tyrant-soon-to-be-emperor, evil genius extraordinaire, and Sonic's arch nemesis… still with that dumb moustache. Sonic wishes he could reach through the projection and punch him right in the face.

"Knuckles," Eggman begins jovially, ignoring everyone else.

"Eggman." Knuckles' face is like stone.

"Are you and your so-called 'resistance' ready to surrender?"

"No way," Knuckles immediately says, and Sonic feels almost proud. "Never. We won't stop fighting until Mobius is free, until we've reclaimed every last city."

"How unfortunate." Eggman sighs. "It pains me to have to destroy such a fine space station."

The video dies with a crackle of static.

…And someone turns off the projector, so that they're sitting in half-darkness again.

"This is bad," someone says. Chokes out. No one moves. "Shit."

"Guys, what?" Amy exclaims with sudden outrage, standing up. "Are we just going to _sit here_? We've got a fight left to win, we've got a _war_ left to win. Get going!"

"I'll have to check on the defences, and the radars, and the-" Tails looks like he's trying to balance fifty plates with only two hands, and so Sonic leaps out of his seat too. Someone's gotta run this show, right-

"Tekno, Pliers- you both go help Tails with all the engineering stuff. Silver-" he perks up. "-you're going straight to the infirmary." (he deflates) "Amy-"

"I'll inform everyone," she decides in a rush, green eyes blazing. She looks so different from the twelve-year-old girl who had a crush on him. _We've come so far_. "What – how do I tell the soldiers?"

Amy stares at him. Sonic stares at Knuckles, who throws up his hands. "I don't know! Tell them to prepare for battle!"

"But _what's_ the threat?" Mighty asks. "What do we have to prepare for?"

"The Egg Fleet," Shadow replies. "I assume."

"And the Death Egg," Sonic adds. No matter how many times they blew up that blasted place, Eggman always rebuilt it… And Sonic's opinion on it only got more venomous with the years. At the very least it doesn't seem to have a superweapon built in this time… _or_ Egghead might just have been waiting to use it on their hideout. 50/50 chance.

"Alright!" Knuckles commands, and all the rapid activity and frantic chatter screeches to a halt. "Everyone but Sonic and Tails, you're dismissed! Team Dark, help the engineers in whatever way you can." He waves a hand, and Sonic watches everyone rush outside, some already talking through their communicators. Rouge pauses briefly in the doorway, and looks back at Knuckles for a moment. He glances at her. It feels like a very private moment, but it only takes a second. And then Rouge too, leaves, and the doors slide shut…

Knuckles switches on the lights by waving a hand, and Tails types on his Miles Electric at a pace too fast to read. Sonic just sits in his chair, picking at the empty finger of his glove.

Team Sonic, back in action.

* * *

 **A while later…**

The ARK has more computers than an electrics store, and hundreds of machines that you'll never even find in a store – either because they're too old, too dangerous, or too specific. Time has been kind to them, seeing as no one has been on the ARK to disturb them – save for that one instance when they blew up the moon. When Sonic saved him. Shadow repaid that debt in the Black Arms War but… he's always going to be grateful. Though he won't admit it. (he has a feeling something worse than death would've happened, if not for Sonic-)

Sonic.

-Shadow should be working. They're supposed to go through all the old programs Tails hasn't gotten to yet, particularly regarding energy distribution and security in the old labs. If there's anything dangerous still around – chemicals, artificial chaos – or anything useful – research notes, less insane weapons than the Eclipse cannon or the Biolizard (Shadow hated that brainless prototype) – then it would be really useful to know before it exploded on them.

Shadow volunteered to rifle through all the old documents saved on the computers. He thinks he's uncovered everything about his past already, but. But if someone uploaded a diary here fifty years ago…

He wants to look over this alone.

There are… indeed some diaries. He doesn't recognise any of the names, can't tell if he should be able to remember them. They're all human names, and he isn't surprised. A woman, Dahlia, writes of her son back on Mobius, also diagnosed with NIDS. Another scientist writes of the artificial chaos, of what wonders they could possibly be used for. Yet another human writes about Project Shadow, and… Shadow never liked much to read science papers written about himself.

-There's a diary by an Elmer, which has a lot of interesting things to say about chemicals, so Shadow copies it. He scrolls onward through the lists.

And he stops.

Freezes at the name _Robotnik_.

He opens the folder, almost in a daze. It's Gerald's notes, it's clear as soon as he looks at it. (Maria didn't write much, anyway) There's file after file on Project Shadow, and what looks to be instructions from GUN. Shadow very calmly and detachedly goes through them, stops once at a document on NIDS research, and continues…

There's something strange.

Shadow frowns. The documents has started to sound more and more off and- he reads. He reads, and there's notes about Chaos energy flows and limiters, Chaos drives and chips. Chaos energy limiting chips. _No wait_ , and he's starting to feel cold, _there's more._ A tiny chip to control the flow of Chaos energy through a living being. Elaborations to how one could fit even more on the chip – could make it a deadly weapon should…

…Should one find themselves _displeased_ with how that _being_ behaved.

Shadow shuts the documents, leaves the folder, backs away from the computer. Disgust is churning in the pit of his stomach, and it feels like the walls are closing in. Like his past is closing in on him, trying to suffocate him, silence him, bury him. Everything tilts to the side-

' _And refusal to obey an order would be near impossible, with the chip embedded in-'_

He's on the floor. Fuck, why is he on the floor? _Get up_.

A breath shudders out of him. _What_ \- The Professor had never told him about the chip, obviously. Of course not, haha, why would he have? Vital information, anyone? -Shadow had been a fool to trust that kindly old man – Shadow had been a fool for trusting _anyone_.

A chip. A _chip_ , implanted in his body, a chip which could be used to – to _turn off_ his Chaos energy stream, just flip a switch to leave him dry and stranded without his birthright. A chip which could be used to kill him, to _control_ him, just a finger to a button and then the chip would've-

If the Commander had had that sort of power in the Black Arms War…

If the Doctor would have that sort of power _now_ …

He's slumped on the floor, and very slowly, tries to go through all of his facts. A numb sort of terror hit him first – _is this the truth-?_ And next, it's the betrayal which jars him. A sense of betrayal and a specific kind of grief which tears at his very heart – he had trusted _that man_ with so much. _That man_ had been like a father to him, and then _this_ -

-and at last, Shadow's eyes narrow, anger simmering low. The professor had lied to him _all his life_.

It was perhaps fortunate, that old Gerald Robotnik already lay in his grave. Though his grandson did _not_.

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N** : _The last scene of the chapter, right there? It was actually the very first scene I wrote for this story, on the fifth of January. I couldn't not include it. (Though I had to edit it slightly)..._


	9. Next move

**A/N: so sorry for the delay!** _This chapter is very short but I swear I'll get back to posting more frequently when I'm done with all my school business/irl things!_

 **Guest review replies!**

 **MadameMirage77:** Thanks so much! And about the sonadow – I promise we'll get there, as soon as the war allows XD. And yes, I think that if things had happened this way… well, GUN are pretty shady and Shadow's past with them is Not Good. This time Shadow didn't even fight Infinite, so – no dumb mask! –Of course Eggman is smug. (it's great fun writing smug people tbh) and he's got his whole army to pick from, so… maybe Infinite will show up! Who knows! …and about Shadow. Well. *nervous laughter* I think… he's going to talk to someone for sure. Hopefully.

 **The Nameless One:** well, what can I say? Emotions are so fun. Thanks for reading! :D

* * *

 **Right now...**

Three figures sit around a table, and on the middle of the table rests the Miles Electric. Its screen is showing something which has to be a map of the space around ARK, and the big blot in the middle of the screen has a swarm of blinking red dots approaching it. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it's _not_ a horde of resistance shuttles…

Knuckles groans. "Okay, great, he's sending out his Starfleet. What about the Death Egg?"

Sonic's face darkens at the name. Knuckles hadn't exactly been watching for his reaction, but it was noticeable. Tails just says, "It… appears to be moving. Slowly. But I can't determine when-"

"You don't know yet?"

Tails shakes his head, frowning as he stares down with intensity at the Miles Electric.

"Great, great." Knuckles says. It was shaping up to be one of those weeks, wasn't it. "How many ships in the fleet?"

"Thirty. There might be smaller crafts among them that the technology on ARK isn't picking up yet."

"Fantastic. How big's _our_ fleet?"

"The Starfleet?" Tails frowns even harder. "We've got… eleven larger ships, and about… thirty smaller shuttles, maybe?"

Knuckles nods. _That's something_. "How long will the defences of ARK-"

"-hold out?" Tails guesses, looking up. Knuckles motions at him to continue. "The shields… It's just that we spent so much time on wiping the ARK off of all radars and _now_ -" Tails breathes in, out. Knuckles waits, feels dread starting to ever so slowly slither in through his ribcage. "We have shields, they cover the whole ARK – but they're fifty years behind our time. With Eggman's Starfleet assaulting them… they wouldn't- the ARK doesn't have the power needed for those shields to- They're too _outdated_ , they'll break down in…"

Tails stares down at the screen again, eyes wide like he can't help it. "Three days. That's the most they could possibly be expected to- and we'd have to route _all_ the energy to the shields. No lights, no temperature controls, only the most basic life-support-"

"Okay," Knuckles says. "When will the Egg fleet reach us?"

"In two hours."

"So," Knuckles says. He looks at Tails, who's keeping track of all the data, and at Sonic, silent observer. "What's our plan?"

"Send out our fleet?" Tails suggests. "I mean-"

"-we cannot let them reach the ARK, yeah." Sonic says, finally opening his mouth. "I agree with Tails."

"Who's in charge of the fleet?" Knuckles demands. "If we're going to send them out to confront the Egg fleet then I _don't_ want a moron in charge."

"It's Fog." At their blank looks, Tails says, "The crow. You met her three weeks ago?"

"Oh, yeah," Knuckles says. It was so peaceful on Angel Island, where the only face you had to keep track of was your own. Harvest some grapes, sit at the altar _… Oh well_. "She's good enough, I suppose. Send out the fleet, then."

"Okay," Tails says, already typing. And then that was it.

- _Was_ that it? Was sending out their fleet all they could do? They were supposed to be _safe_ , hidden away on the ARK, but now they're stuck in a dead-end, waiting. _Waiting_. There had to be something-"Do we… Should we evacuate?" -Knuckles is out of his depth. On one hand he knows how to do surviving, that's easy – on the _other_ hand, he now has thousands of people to account for. That's. A lot more than a village, that's a lot more than a clan.

"There's… a high possibility that the Egg fleet would shoot down any-"

"Oh. Shit. You're right."

Next question: _are we sitting ducks now or what?_

"And the Death Egg?"

"It's moving toward the ARK. Slowly. I don't- maybe that's just the fastest it can manage." It still hangs in the air: _maybe he's just taking his time._ Like a predator playing with its food.

Sonic pipes up, still looking moody. "Isn't is possible to move the ARK? Or is that reserved for when you're smashing it into the planet?"

"I've taken a look at the systems – and _yes_ , but again, it's _really_ slow. And they didn't have very advanced technology back then, Robotniks or not..."

"So… Why don't we just blow up the Death Egg?"

"Finally asking the right questions," Sonic says. He's grinning, but his eyes are narrowed like he's planning something nasty.

"We all can't be irresponsible and trigger-happy," Knuckles sighs, and shoves at Sonic's shoulder. Sonic shoves back, and okay, maybe Knuckles was being a bit of a hypocrite.

"C'mon, we've all wanted to blow it up as soon as we heard of it. It's this irresistible urge-"

"Can't feel it," Knuckles says flatly. "Tails?"

"Blowing the Death Egg up _would_ solve two of our problems…"

" _Two_ of our problems?" Maybe something was going right for once.

Tails actually starts to perk up a bit as he explains, "You see, in the notes we all wrote – well, basically the Phantom Ruby needs a power source, and it's _not_ based on chaos energy. The Death Egg is what's powering the Phantom Ruby, so if we destroyed the Death Egg…"

"Let's blow it up. Right now." Sonic has an expression which Knuckles has seen only twice before on his face, and that's when Knuckles realises why Sonic was so quiet the whole meeting. Bloodlust. Eggman's destroyed the world, and now he's threatening Sonic's people – so Sonic is going to fight back with everything he has.


	10. Space chicken soup

**A/N: it's been a month. Well.**

 **Sorry.** _My only excuse is that this chapter fought me on literally every point a text can fight you. It's a lot. And you don't even get any EXP…_

 **Guest review replies!**

 **MadameMirage77:** _Sonic – like when he gets Serious, then he's all quiet and unnerving – and these circumstances are_ bad _, because Eggman isn't threatening Sonic, that'd be perfectly fine – but no. Eggman is threatening_ everyone _he cares about, so. Yeah. (PS. I've seen some takes where the Robotniks were mostly nice people and_ Ivo _was the odd one out, haha. That said, it was mostly on orders of GUN that he made that chip) And I'm sorry but I don't know anything about_ Gargoyles _– but in general, if you think it'll be good then go for it! :D_

 **BulletWitch1985:** _the amnesia would've been interesting if they had just… done more with it? -I don't really mind it in canon but yeah – it's_ incredibly _annoying when no one tells him anything! (I assume you meant 'striped' and not 'stripped' XD) Black Doom… There's not even anything to say… Garbage can? –and Sonic's attitude was way off in Forces – like, putting on a smile for everyone else's morale? Sure. But what they did in Forces? Nah thanks… -Thanks for the review - and shoot, I'm terribly sorry about your family. I hope your sister recovers._

 **Guest:** _working on it, working on it…_

* * *

Bats have excellent hearing. Which is good for the job but completely awful if you're trying to sleep while the neighbours are practising drumming. On the ARK? The ever present whirr of machinery can't quite hide the size of all the long empty hallways, silent and untouched. It's no wonder that Rouge's ears catch the odd noise; gasping breaths, choking themselves silent…

-Rouge comes to stop at a doorway, and peeks inside of the room. Pretty nondescript. There's a computer at the far end of it. And what draws her eye next: someone's slumped on the floor next to it.

"Hey, how are you-" Rouge stops abruptly, because it's _Shadow_. Very cleverly she blurts, "Shadow?"

He makes a noise which could be interpreted as ' _yeah, what_?', or ' _I'm dying'_

Various scenarios race through her mind and are discarded just as quickly, and Rouge dumps the boxes on the floor, moving to sit next to Shadow. He's not injured. Of course not. Then it has to be something, something-

"Shadow?"

Rouge puts a hand on his shoulder, because he sits hunched over his knees so she can't see his face, and she's not that great at this, anyway. A long moment passes, and eventually Shadow exhales and says, voice so forcedly emotionless, "I uncovered some rather… alarming intel. I think- it would be-" he clears his throat, and says almost angrily. "You should – look at it."

The computer is right there. Shadow suddenly stands up, graceful and cold, and opens up some documents. Rouge stands next to him and pretends for his sake that she can't see his hands shaking, and carefully starts to read. It's utterly silent except for the click of the keys, and Shadow stands like a statue, while Rouge reads. And reads. She's done this before; read through clinical reports on Shadow, all information and no warmth. She's with GUN. She's done this before-

She's never seen this before.

Someone might have thought of this as _useful_. Maybe even- but this isn't about that, it's about her best friend. It's about someone who already has struggled with this again and again, and every time some even more damaging piece of information resurfaces— this isn't what he deserves.

This is also very dangerous.

"Do you-" Of course Shadow hadn't known, so she changes the question mid-step- "Does the Doctor have access-"

"No," Shadow says, and _yes, obviously not_.

"If he had then he would've already-" Rouge trails off, eyes sharp. "This is fixable. We need to-"

"Delete the documents," Shadow stresses. "If the Doctor-"

"I know, but the surgeon might want – _damn_." Rouge stares at the screen, something like exasperated rage churning inside. "Shadow," She promises, "We _will_ get that chip out."

Shadow turns his face away, and Rouge stares at the screen. She's, again, not too great at things like this (if you on the other hand want to rile someone up she's your go-to gal) – but she gets when Shadow wants to be alone. So Rouge leaves him be and starts typing instead, downloading and deleting and overwriting. The – the chip is in his head so when they're getting it out… as said before, the surgeon might want some notes. One single copy; the rest wiped clean off the servers.

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

"I'll sneak inside the Death Egg," Sonic offers. They all three know he just wants to be the one to destroy it, but he's good at what he does, so? _Let me have my revenge._ (He still knows the cell back there like the back of his hand. Like the back of his ruined hand. He remember the exact shade of the walls and even the damn _smell_ of that place-)

(it smelled bitter and too clean, sterile)

"And what about the defenses?" Knuckles asks. "There's no way Eggman won't know we're – _you_ 're – coming."

"The defenses _can_ luckily be deactivated, but can _only_ be shut down from inside of the Death Egg–" Tails says quickly, _"Or_ from the main computer located in Chemical Plant."

There's a moment. "So. We need to get to the computer in Chemical Plant." Knuckles looks up like he's checking that they're both still hanging on. Or like he's checking to see if maybe there's another way of doing it, please?

"Unfortunately," Tails replies eventually, because someone has to, "We need to, yes."

"And with what resources?" Knuckles throws up his hands. "If _our_ fleet is occupied with Eggman's fleet-"

"We've got a fleet on the surface, too," Tails says. " _But_ they're defending the border to Shamar…"

Knuckles lets out a long sigh.

"How many do we need to take Chemical Plant?" Sonic asks, ignoring his impatience for a moment. If maybe they could spare some-

"I don't know!" Tails cries. "More than we can spare-"

"Is there any other…" Knuckles trails off. "Nevermind. We have to abandon Shamar, don't we?"

Tails chews on his lip, but doesn't say anything. Which means that factually, there's no other good option. Impatience and anxiety, the urge to do something, _anything_ , fight against Sonic's feeling of adamant refusal. They can't just make the decision to abandon Shamar – but they can't _not_ do it, they'll be toast if they do. This is what Sonic hates the most about the whole leadership deal – when you _have_ to make bad decisions, if only because all the other options are even worse…

Though this time it's on Knuckles. But that doesn't mean Sonic feels less hollow for not coming up with a better alternative.

"We…" Tails hesitates. "We could send a couple of ships from the Starfleet to aid them, which would allow us to still keep half the fleet back in Shamar…

 _But then we've got half a fleet in three different places instead._

"Sonic?" Knuckles glances at him.

 _Though half a fleet is better than nothing…_

"Send them, I guess. You're the boss." Shamar has been holding out for this long – they're capable. They have to be.

Knuckles nods, and then he's silent for a moment. It's not a particularly long moment, but it feels as if crucial time is slipping out of their hands with every breath, and Sonic's never been good at waiting.

"Sonic, you'll go take out the Death Egg. We'll send five ships from Shamar and a few ships from space to Chemical Plant, where they'll try and reach the computer- and the ARK's defenses will keep Eggman at bay for as long as this takes. Which shouldn't be long." Knuckles looks at them. "That's the plan, right?"

"Right," Tails mumbles. "The most difficult part… I don't know. We might have to hack the computer – or maybe he wouldn't have put passwords-" He trails off. "But – yeah. That's it."

"As easy as doing handstands on a plane."

Knuckles' expression was both long-suffering and utterly unfazed. "Now that this is all decided and done with, the meeting's officially _over_. I have other things to do."

* * *

 **Later…**

The pheasant who reigns over the medical ward is attempting to feed Silver soup through a straw when the door slides open. Silver looks up, and then immediately pushes the cup away when he sees that it's Espio. Oh _yes_. Finally someone with information about what's going on, someone who knows what he's – what _they're_ supposed to do next. Silver is supposed to stay in the infirmary. Of course. Very important to stay in medical, yes.

-Silver starts waving until Espio looks his way, and then he enthusiastically beckons for Espio to come sit next to him. The pheasant lady seems satisfied to leave him with Espio, and quickly rushes away to tend to the patient in the bed across from his.

Espio gives him a slightly dubious look, and carefully sits down on top of the covers. "Hello, Silver."

Silver nods and nods. Like, what else should he do? He motions in the air and a writing pad flies over from a desk, and is soon joined by a pen zooming in from another direction. Espio watches him work with an eyebrow quirked, but Silver is pretty sure it's in amusement. Silver would try and smile at him, but his jaw is like… completely out of function, or something. Oh man, would telepathy be handy right now…

Silver's writing is quick, messy, and somewhat blocky. He stumbles over the rounded curves of the letters of this century, and he doesn't really get the difference between capital letters and normal ones. He's getting better though. He _is_. And hey – it could've been much worse! If the spoken language too had changed drastically in the future, _then_ he would've been in some deep water…

-He flips the pad and shows it to Espio. _whats going on out there?_

"Knuckles is sending half the fleet to Chemical Plant."

Silver writes, _?_

Espio's mouth twitches briefly. He explains, "There's a computer terminal in Chemical Plant which controls the Death Egg's defenses. Sonic has… special orders to infiltrate the Death Egg."

Okay? Is it real secret business or is Espio just revealing it this way because he likes it? Both? Silver scribbles down a, _so what will u do?_

Espio looks at the text for a moment, and Silver looks at hm for a moment. "There isn't much to do but wait," Espio says mildly. "Wait and be prepared."

That combination of words shouldn't sound as ominous as they actually do.

* * *

 **Later…**

In half-forgotten memories, he would always seek out a window whenever he felt like just turning around, smashing all the lab equipment and shouting at the humans and never coming back. There is something so calming about space – it's just a void. It's a soothing deep velvet black, the stars burning so far away it's always cold on the railings underneath the ARK. Mobius was like a myth up here – just a blue sunrise, so distant you could joke about going there because he'd never leave without Maria, and she loved to make plans but they both knew that she couldn't leave.

(there had been a small chance of curing her. But GUN didn't let her have _even_ that one chance)

Shadow stands by a window in a dark empty room, gazing out, and tries to forget. It feels like there's something lodged in his throat, but after coming down from the panic-shock-anger-nausea- _my-knees-will-give-out_ -high he mostly feels… nothing. There's surely very poetic things to say about colourless paintings and goddamn wrung-out _towels_ , and Shadow wants to-

' _Ultimate Lifeform, created to be-'_

"Hey."

Shadow doesn't jump, but he spins around embarrassingly fast. It's Sonic.

He contemplates.

"Faker."

Sonic quirks his mouth the faintest bit at the nickname – that insult has aged its way through friendly and sarcastic and right into a greeting phrase. "I saw you. From the hallway, and then I thought 'wow, Shadow is just standing there. Alone. In a dark room-"

"Just get to the point."

"Aw Shads, not up for chatting today?" Sonic sobers up impressively fast. "Great, 'cause I don't wanna small-talk either."

"The point." Shadow repeats. He might be needed for something. They've been in a large urgent emergency ever since they got back on ARK – if they need any moving or sorting or guided tours done he'd be more than happy to-

Sonic says: "Are you- how are you?"

-Shadow immediately coaxes his expression into something even flatter, even more neutral. "Same as always."

Sonic looks at him. He's standing in the shadows by the door, his eyes gleaming green in the dark. The glass panes in the floor are lit by an eerie blue glow, and you can see Mobius floating thousands of kilometres below them. Shadow looks back at Sonic, and he opens his mouth to reply-

There's a sound like a firework from far away, and at once they both turn to the windows.

A ripple of blue flashes in the sky, and then there's another one, something crashing into the almost invisible force field around ARK. More blue sparks spray up from the shield as it takes a few more hits, and Shadow squints and looks farther, behind the impromptu lightshow. Dark round shapes in the distance, obscuring the stars. Movement.

"It's started," Shadow says curtly. "Was there anything else?"

"Well, if you know anything more about the ARK's defense systems Tails would really appreciate your help-"

"Noted." Shadow turns to go, and Sonic follows a moment later, still glancing back. There's another crackle of blue, and they both pause for just a second at the door. (Sonic wants to say something – he wants to say a lot but there's no time so he better just go and hurry up – he can always hassle Shadow when he's come back from the-) Shadow starts skating along to the right, while Sonic cuts to the left, starting to run.

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N** : _you might just all hate me now because,_ _delays_ _, but thanks for sticking by :p more chapters coming, hopefully soon; we'll see._


	11. Together

**Guest review replies!**

 **BulletWitch1985:** _big sister Rouge? Sounds good. Tails could do things to the_ chip _, but he's no surgeon… *shrugging emoji* Sonic is pretty irritated, yeah. Having someone to keep an eye on him would be a brilliant idea. And_ of course _Eggman had to ruin it, what did you expect? XD Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment!_

 **Guest:** _then I guess I'm doing my job right ;)_

 **MadameMirage77:** _I also love platonic Shadouge, so yeah. Oh, you're all friends? …As long as they themselves need some time the stories can wait, can't they? Take care._

* * *

 **A/N: I lose all sense of time-perception in the summer.** **I'm sorry.**

* * *

It was a beautiful day at the beginning of summer when Sonic lost. Lost; was defeated and didn't get back up again – Amy wasn't even present for it but still she felt something _change_. She hadn't fought for her life for nearly a year, and then the war crashed upon them like a sudden tidal wave of destruction. Everything narrowed down to a few goals: Get everyone out, protect the people, _get out_ of the city, find survivors, find friends, find Tails, find Knuckles, get Cream away –

"You'll be okay, you'll be okay," she said to the little kid cradling their broken hand to their chest with wide eyes, and the city trembled, the kid trembled, and maybe Amy did too. She collected grief and hurts and bruises, but she didn't stop, she couldn't afford to stop. So when blood ran into her eyes and she first saw Infinite maim, what else to do but continue? Keep up the fight. She saved as many as she could, gathered people together with Knuckles. She helped to form the resistance…

…and then, someone told them that Sonic was dead. All that grief she just didn't have the time to deal with before they had a proper base, pain and fear and guilt she had bottled up – she kind of snapped. After everything that had happened and now even _Sonic_ was _dead_ -

-the one who told them was Tails. They'd finally found him – and it was quickly apparent that Tails hadn't been looking for them. Which, seriously? They would've been overjoyed to have him, why go solo? "Eggman got him," was the first thing he told them, looking like he hadn't slept in about 72 hours. "Infinite took Sonic down."

After all that – Amy suspected that Tails still didn't think Sonic was gone. But so many others were, so many orphaned, so many bodies, so many injured, and Amy found out she could easily picture Sonic's dead body. She wished she could erase that picture from her mind with absolute certainty. She wanted to believe that he was still alive, somewhere out there. Finding out Sonic _actually_ was alive must've been more like a matter of course to Tails, like yeah _obviously_ , but to Amy it was like a gift, like something she knew she could never have – because he had been _dead_.

But he wasn't.

That was – that was something, alright.

Even _without_ the glittery rosy high of having a crush on him. She's kinda glad she moved on from him, looking at things now. Way less stress. And at least Blaze, who admittedly is pretty cool (and okay, she's cute. Really cute) is safe with Cream in the Sol Dimension…

So, newsflash! They're being attacked. They're fighting back, they're planning things, and Amy is angry. That's her new default state, but that Eggman would have the _nerve_ to first _force them out into space_ and _then_ come to take even _that_ away from- she forces her fingers to loosen around the hilt of her hammer. Decisions are good, so about that – actually deciding who goes where – mostly it's whoever calls shots first who goes, while Knuckles either nods along or grumbles something. He and Tails are forced to stay aboard the ARK – Tails, because he's holding together the defenses on ARK like superglue, and Knuckles, because someone has to keep an eye on things and he's The Commander.

They're sending people off with the fleet to different locations, so Amy signs herself up for going to Chemical Plant. "You can count on me," she says cheerfully, already wondering how many ships will be there to stop them, best strategy for-

"The computer," Tails stresses, "Focus on reaching it, the fighting isn't-"

"Computer is first priority, got it."

Then Knuckles nods at her too, and that's it: the 2-minute briefing is just about wrapped up. Amy gets up and grabs her hammer, leaving the room to scattered _goodbyes_ from Tekno and Tails and Ray. She stops in the doorway to let Shadow pass, and then she takes off at a run.

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

There had been a PowerPoint presentation about living on the ARK. It had gone much like this: _don't open any doors, don't look into any weird containers, don't go out on the rails below ARK – and in case of an emergency, don't panic, just follow the instructions._ Mighty had also spent twenty minutes explaining the Artificial Chaos to his audience, and why you should run in the other direction if you spotted one in the corridor. The scientist in Gadget thought Artificial Chaos were a fascinating subject – and the rest of him just kind of wanted to lay down for a bit.

-currently the 'Emergency Part' was coming back to him.

After Amy's initial warning there hadn't been any noise over the speaker system until a few minutes ago, when a calm and almost detached voice had started giving orders to the various groups and squads present on the ARK. Compared to GUN the resistance had a rather confusing and disorganized system, with squads being put together seemingly at random and with leaders being switched out for another without any warning. Though Gadget hadn't been commander of either organisation, so maybe they really knew what they were doing.

At least the man giving them directions seemed to know what was up, so Gadget had headed for the hangar with the rest of Spark Squad, as instructed. Another squad, Hawks 2, was also directed to the hangar. Turns out nearly all of them are birds, and a few of them give Spark Squad _that look_. The you-poor-flightless-peasants _look_.

Rex blows a raspberry.

Gadget sighs. He really wishes they could have gotten more information – he should've just hid in the vents above the Great Room, listened in on the meeting. Seriously, was the intel of any use? Shadow the Hedgehog ought to be good at the whole spy business, right? Bringing back a useful USB? Just – let all that's happened in Central City amount to _something_ , not let it all just be a complete waste of a mission-

"Everyone, attention please!" exclaims someone, and Gadget spins around.

There's a person power-walking toward them, their little cluster of people standing by the shuttles. It's… Amy Rose, hammer in hand. Gadget has met her twice before, rather briefly, but as petite as she was she sure made lasting impressions. Might've been the almost scary determination, or possibly the bafflingly cheery optimism. (everyone knew Sonic had been one of her best friends, how was she still looking so upbeat? It was like she was trying to compensate for everyone else's grief…)

The crowd quietens down to a murmur as she approaches, utterly silent as she comes to stand in front of them. Amy seems to look the two squads over, considering them. A moment later she starts speaking. "As you all probably know, Eggman knows we're here. As you all _don't_ know, there's a way to turn off all the security on the Death Egg. The key to doing that is in Chemical Plant, and we _need_ to get this right – Sonic only has _one_ chance to destroy the Death Egg. That's _our_ only chance."

She pauses to draw breath. "I'm your new squad leader. Our mission is to head to Chemical Plant, reach the computer, and deactivate the defenses of the Death Egg. We'll have to fight our way in. Hawks 1 will try to provide a diversion, but…" She makes a wiggly gesture with her hand. "…it might not work. However, I have total faith in us _and_ the fact that the Egg Army is not as smart as it looks. We'll be leaving in about 20 minutes. Though until then, you're all dismissed."

They're going to the surface.

They're going to the surface, the planet, to Chemical Plant, and _how_ can the thought of going back _home_ fill Gadget with so much apprehension?

* * *

 **Elsewhere…**

Their meeting room (Shadow hopes dearly its name isn't actually 'the Great Room' because Chaos is that terrible-) had quickly been emptied after Rose's departure, with Commander Knuckles the last one to go. Now it's just him, Tails, and that canary Tekno, surrounded by screens and folders. Shadow knows Tails is a very skilled and capable engineer despite his young age, but Tekno? _We'll see._

Focusing on the weak points of the ARK and how to make them stronger is a brilliant distraction, and Tails seems happy to get things done. Rerouting all the energy they won't need to the shields is mostly done, with Tekno overseeing the last bit, directing people over her communicator and marking things on a blueprint. Not too badly, so far… However, there's lot of utterly useless systems in the background that devour energy, and she wouldn't have caught them if Shadow hadn't pointed them out.

(there's freezers still running, keeping unnameable substances cold for fifty years)

ARK doesn't have that many weapons on its outside, apart from the deactivated Eclipse Cannon, so they have to make everything about defense. The shields are old, says Tails, says Tekno – hell, even Shadow has to agree – but even though they're old, they were better than even the _best_ back when they were made: they were revolutionary.

They're kind of shit.

Though it's still _all they've got_ , aren't they, seeing as they don't have time to install new ones and Professor Robotnik didn't seem to think the ARK needed any other defense-

…Shadow forces a breath in, out, and then another one. There's still reinforced doors they can put in lockdown to protect the corridors somewhat, and the back-up power could probably go into use. It's not for long this has to work, only for a day or two-

"I think I've got as much as possible fixed," Tekno announces. "What else can I-"

"Reinforced doors," Shadow orders. "How many, where-"

"This is for – lockdown, is it-"

Shadow nods sharply and Tekno starts typing rapidly.

-And then – there's not much else left. Shadow starts pacing the room, picking up folders and organising them as he goes, waiting. Waiting. Tails and Tekno is handling the last of it and Shadow can't remember anything else useful about the ARK, only medical files-

The _one_ time that all he wants is to never hear anything about his creation ever again, and _of course_ what he actually gets are more and more resurfacing memories of medical files and test-

The door slides open and Rouge- "Fox boy, Team Spark-Hawks-whatever is-" –she steps inside the room, spots Shadow, and they both stare for a second.

"Yeah?" Tails asks, still engrossed in typing.

"Amy and her gang are leaving the ARK right about _now_ , say your goodbyes, and I assume the communication lines are secure?"

"They are, they've been for weeks," Tails says, not once looking up from his Miles Electric. "That's the first thing I fixed, now let me concentrate…"

Shadow grabs another folder from the floor, puts it atop a neat stack he just sorted, and then Rouge is gesturing at him to follow her. They exit the room, leaving the two engineers to their work, and Rouge pulls him into an empty corridor. Shadow quirks an eyebrow, but Rouge launches right into a Serious Conversation without any warning: "They could do the surgery now. Here, on the ARK, right now."

It takes him a moment.

"Right now?"

"Today, yeah. That chip is too dangerous to just leave it in-"

"Is this about me being dangerous and unstable?"

Rouge gives him a _look_. "Sugar, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but I could snap your neck like a twig."

"My bones are stronger than the average," Shadow replies, just because. They _are_ stronger, anyway.

"I know, I've read your files." Rouge lets out a sigh and says bluntly, "Do you want the chip removed, Shadow?"

 _What kind of question is that_. He needs it gone, he needs it to never have been there – but that's the problem. It's taking him too goddamn long to wrap his mind around the idea that the chip was something the Professor really did to him. He knows, he's known for ages, that the only decent Robotnik was Maria, but the chip – why is it such a fucking blow. _Why_. Being frozen for fifty years is just as bad, and _yet_ -

"Yes," Shadow says curtly. "Obviously."

"Good," Rouge says. And gentler; "Whenever you're ready, Shadow."

It could be unsafe to cut into his head. Though he heals fast, and really – what could he possibly do up here anymore? He delivered the intel and then that was it, no more missions handed to Shadow the Hedgehog. He's not going to think of the shields, pathetic as they are. If the Doctor hadn't found them and surrounded them then Shadow would be heading back down to the planet, but now? There's nothing but waiting.

Rouge likely knows that he's reasoning with himself, and knows that she's going to win either way, so Shadow just grumbles, "Fine. I'll take that surgery."

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

Mobius slowly grows larger in the window as they approach, and Gadget tries to focus on the sobering fact that _we're in space_ rather than thinking about the mission, or any part at all of the Egg Army. He's a bit anxious, yes. Mostly because they're a _large_ group now; it's a lot of things to balance now. Failure is also an uncomfortable subject: they could all die. Everyone. Their whole base destroyed in but a matter of hours.

Unbidden, he thinks about his co-workers.

-Then there's someone sitting next to him, starting to talk, and with a jolt Gadget looks at her and it's Amy Rose. "You're Gadget, right?"

"Yes?" He wonders if he should tack a 'ma'am' to that word.

"Heard you did some good work in Central City," she says cheerily. "Fought Chaos. He's pretty tough, so I guess you've gotten the hang of your weapon?"

Gadget is still trying to catch up to the present, so at first he just stares. "I – yes, I suppose. The grappling hooks are also quite useful." _Let's just review my equipment, shall we._

Amy pats his shoulder, still with that encouraging expression on her face, and says, "You faced Chaos, and you won. That – it takes _something_ , you know? Stubbornness, maybe. One gets better at this with time, I promise… Anyway, you're now officially removed from Rookie Status."

"Thank you?" Gadget says, because it's the polite thing to do, because he has no other answer ready, because he feels like he should be thanking her for something.

She nods, and then she blurts out, "Do you have any idea how weird it is when all the adults look to me for advice? Here I am, fifteen years old, giving advice to you, however old you are-"

"Older than you."

"-yeah, you see? And still I'm the leader. Though I've always been – I used to have a small team, like Team Sonic? But we called ourselves Team Rose." She doesn't wait for him to reply. "Things change a lot, don't they?"

"It's – it's a war," Gadget says haltingly. "A lot of things change then."

"Yeah," Amy says. They both don't look at each other, and watch Mobius through the glass. Eventually Amy Rose removes her hand from his shoulder, stands up, and says brightly, "Feel free to ignore everything I just said, except the part about you being a good fighter! Remember that, and don't falter, alright?" She gives him an intent look, and says almost cryptically, "You'll be fine, as long as you just believe in yourself."

* * *

 **Later…**

The smell of cleaning products is enough to remind Shadow of how much he resents hospitals, and the medical bay on ARK specifically. Bad memories. _Many_ bad memories. The ghost of Maria, once again floored by a coughing fit, forced to go to medical. Or simply: a glimpse of a memory of syringes. Standing outside in the corridor isn't very enjoyable either.

Rouge is standing next to him, not saying anything while he glares at the door, and Omega is doing his best gargoyle impression too. He had been lifting containers in the hangar and helping out with heavy lifting all over the ARK, apparently, since Rouge thinks it's good for him to 'meet some people'. She managed to pull him out of his schedule just for this, this waste of time. They're not even talking.

"If they do this _now_ ," Shadow says. "If later there's an emergency – I won't be able to help."

"At this point," Rouge answers wryly, "It'll all go perfectly as planned, or we'll lose so badly there's nothing help can do."

" _You must delete the malware to return to optimal state of being_ ," Omega states. " _It is the logical course of action_."

Shadow has decided already, anyway. He decided years ago to never be someone else's weapon again – this is just another step in that direction. He just doesn't like hospitals, he doesn't like the thought of a surgery done on ARK, he doesn't like how he literally _just_ found out about the whole goddamn chip in the first place. He wants revenge for _something_ , for the chip, for the fact that it was the Professor who put it there – _if it had been anyone else-_

-but he's getting it removed. Before it could do any damage, even.

(-before it could _make him_ do any damage-)

Rouge slings an arm around him in a half-hug, and they stay like that for a second. When it seems like she's about to say something Shadow steps back. He pats Omega's arm, nodding to Rouge.

"Don't wait for me in the infirmary," Shadow says.

"We won't, then," Rouge replies. She winks. "Got things to do, I'm a busy woman."

" _We will rendezvous when you have finished here."_

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N:** -why is everyone prepared to do surgery on Shadow right this instant? Rouge sped up the process. –and I've mentioned Tekno the Canary a bunch of times – so just to be clear, she's a Sonic the Comic character.


	12. Nothing but empty air below us

**A/N:** _this chapter was difficult difficult exhausting difficult to write! It took three months! I'm feeling ashamed of myself, and honestly have nothing to say except that I'm sorry._

 **Guest replies!**

 **MadameMirage77:** _take your time. / anyway yeah. I needed a character and Tekno fit the bill, so yeah. (Also Amy deserves so much more alright) hm? Jason Griffith was my fav voice actor for Sonic too, actually. / Yeah get to work (I really should be doing that too…) thanks for reading! :D_

 **BulletWitch1985:** _video-game designer? Wow, that's great! …and focusing on your career choices is probably smarter anyway, haha. :D go get that education! -And thanks for reading, sticking around this long. Good luck to you and Regina both!_

* * *

 **Recap time:** _Eggman now knows that the resistance is hiding on Space Colony ARK, and he threatens to destroy it unless they surrender first. Of course they don't. They have a limited amount of time before the Egg Fleet will break down the shield surrounding ARK, so they gotta act fast: take down the Egg Fleet before it takes them down. They need to get rid of the Death Egg. To do this, they need to reach a computer hidden back on the surface, somewhere in Chemical Plant…_

 ** _._**

* * *

The waves crash against the pillars rising up from the sea, washing over the rails dipping low over the surface of the ocean, water spraying up against the tubes and the platforms looming over the sea. A maze of containers, stairs, rails, bridges, buildings and towers, all balanced on the edge between the ocean and land; all painted in awfully bright colours. There's a chemical stench in the air, mixing with the salt of the sea, but despite the rapid activity inside the facility there's no living thing around to smell it…

As if there's been some sort of signal, airships previously hanging dormant above the sea start to move. They drift out across the waters, and the clouds above start to stir. Spaceships, few but fast, proudly sporting the star of the resistance along with battle marks, start to descend down through the clouds to meet the Egg Fleet with weapons ready.

-So yeah, basically the facility is massive. It's balanced above the sea, shrouded in those nasty misty fumes from the many pipes. Not the most environmentally friendly factory, no. There are Egg Fleet Airships already being dispatched to stop them, but Amy's planning to go right past them and straight for Chemical Plant if at all possible. And it has to be possible; they're going to test that theory right now and on the off chance it doesn't work-

"Miss Rose," begins Fog, Admiral of the resistance fleet, almost politely. She's hanging by the dashboard of the _White Star_ like a gloomy old coat, looking over the shoulder of the pilot. But to be fair, so's Amy. Just two resistance leaders arguing together about the finer details of infiltrating a factory, as you do, bothering the pilot while they're at it. "Perhaps it'd be best if we left a few ships behind to engage the Egg Fleet?"

"No," Amy says, even though that's not a half bad idea _except for-_ "Not yet, at least. I think we can pull this off without losing or leaving any ships behind…" That is, she'd rather not… do that. Lose any more ships. Lose any more people… "And before you ask, Fog, so _yes_ , Tails _did_ give us something useful for doing that."

"And are you certain Prower would know what we'd need?"

 _You know, that's a valid concern. But Tails is a genius_. "He's also put a lot of things we _don't_ need in these ships – so yes, actually, I'm sure the fleet has been equipped with everything I suggested a few weeks ago." Amy smiles at Fog, and Fog looks at her with something akin to disapproval or – concern, maybe. See, Fog's issue is that she doesn't want anyone else to do her job, or something like that, but it's been a long day and Amy doesn't really want to put her focus on _not_ stepping on Fog's toes when they're in a soon-to-be-warzone.

"We need this mission to succeed," Fog says, "The consequences of failure would be-"

"We'd lose the war, I _know_." They'd lose _for good_. They've already lost friends, family, and homes. They could still lose even _more_ , but anyway. This is what this is all about: rising again. Getting up. Though if they lose _this_ time then there won't be anything left for them to- "I know, but I'm certain we can pull this off without losing any more ships, Fog, so that's what we're going to do."

"So!" Amy turns to address the pilot. "Fireworks, please, and then let's get this show on the road…"

Outside, lights explode behind the resistance ships, and at the same moment the Egg Fleet ships start firing. Sparks spray up and smoke blooms where a ship gets hit, and the others veer sharply away before speeding up and diving below. The Egg Fleet ships are bulky and large and clumsy and thus they seem to just hang and wait for a long moment as the resistance ships dart away through the mist and dying lights – and then they all move as one.

Sleek missiles shoot after the resistance, and as two ships dive just in time a third gets struck. Metal shrieks as bits of the _Red Sun_ come loose and fire bursts, the wind snatching at the flames. There's a massive runway opening up closer to the coast, and the first of the resistance ships bravely races toward it-

-and wobbles dangerously out of course as anti-aircraft weapons fire erupts from hidden canons surrounding the runway, several shots hitting it. The _White Star_ surges forward in its stead, opening fire with its own weapons, and at the same moment the _Red Sun_ dives, half-crashing and half-landing, skidding across the runway. Steel rips and glass shatters as it smacks into a protective fence, a ribbon of smoke curling up from the wreck as it finally stills.

Missiles shoot past overhead.

Over their coms people are shouting, and there's a whoop of victory when an enemy ship goes spiralling down in flames. The _White Star_ swoops down for a landing, shots following it, but it's only pavement that's hit and the ship comes to a smooth stop. A third ship circles above them, distracting the Egg Fleet, while people start to spill out of the landed ships and rush forward.

* * *

 **Moments later…**

The place is a maze.

Gadget, some yellow bird, and Rex the coyote are all running after Amy Rose, mostly because she's _the leader_ , but to be honest it's at least 30% because the rest of them have no idea where they're supposed to be going. He can hear the sound of distant explosions, but the actual battle is obscured by several looming towers and a construction crane, which is good. The air is cold and reeks of chemicals, which is less good. Amy quickly finds them a curving road made of tubes which takes them close to the main building.

(at least Gadget assumes it is the main building: it's too large to comprehend, just a wall of metal and tubing and wires going on and on and disappearing into the overcast sky)

There's another team approaching them from the left; Amy waves in acknowledgement.

Next they're all running through a dark tunnel, and Gadget wishes he had a flashlight as he blindly turns right, left, following the pounding of the others' feet.

When they step out into light again it's dim and green; they're inside now. Gadget takes in the surroundings – cavernous hall, small corridors, and machinery everywhere that isn't tubes or pipes. Amy leads them across a small bridge and around another corner, and then there's just a horde of robots in the way. Gadget's hands fly to his Wispon as his pulse trips, and then there's shots and blasts of energy flying toward them and Amy yells and someone _screams_ and Rex is falling, flung aside by the force of what hit him-

-the bird dive after him so Gadget leaves it to them and lets flames pour out from his Wispon, trying to balance fighting with sneaking glances down at Rex. Unfortunately there's not really time for anything else than forcing the robots back while dodging energy blasts, which takes _effort_ and _concentration_ and eventually Gadget can't worry anymore. They need to destroy these bots if they want to help Rex, if they want to proceed, so that's just – that's what they'll do.

He and Amy.

She's strong, she's more confident than him, and she takes charge and fights enough for the bird and Rex too.

It's over as fast as it began, and Gadget sprints back to check on Rex, but stumbles and stops as soon as he sees him clearly. It hits him like he's gotten shot himself – _Rex is dying_. There's red on his hands and red on his chest and smeared over his cheek and the bird is just sitting there uselessly-

-which makes Gadget join them on the floor, roughly shoving them and their hands out of the way, his own hands fluttering over Rex's body but there's nothing he can do. Nothing he can do. Just like in the GUN labs, he's useless useless _useless_ , and he's not handling this, especially not as then the bird pushes his hands away again. "You can't help anymore."

"He's _dead_!" Gadget spits the words out so that they won't lodge in his throat and choke him. "He's dead, we should've-"

"I know, I get it man," the bird interrupts. "But that's just that. He's dead. Nothing can touch him anymore. But you-" they poke a finger at Gadget's chest, "-you've got shit to do, so keep it together for a bit more?"

Mm-mm. Right. Yeah.

And so Gadget bit down on his lip and forced calm into his body like it was poison, breathing in and out and taking up his Wispon again. Because apparently he had to do this. He got himself into it, and he was going to get everyone else out of it... _Who is he kidding?_ This is _so_ not his place, has never been, he isn't any good at this is he, he just happened to _survive_ when everyone else didn't. _Ah shit_. He can't just waste that. Which is a new and quite uncomfortable point of view, but he'll take it.

Damn it all.

"Who are you even?" Gadget turns to the bird and asks, while Amy kneels behind them and gently rearranges Rex's limbs.

"I'm a photographer!" They reply. "The name's Cass. If you ever get married you should absolutely hire me, I'm cheap."

Gadget thinks about everything else he could say and chooses, "I used to make prosthetics for GUN."

"GUN? Oof… Guess your talents could help with the rebuilding though. Prosthetics are a pretty big deal, aren't they?"

 _The rebuilding_. That there will ever be a part of this catastrophe called the _rebuilding_ is a staggering thought. Gadget tries to visualise it: new capital, new roads, new towns… "I guess," he replies. "If we ever do get to the rebuilding part…"

 _Don't falter_ , he hears Amy's voice in his head. And then the real Amy stands up and motions for the two of them to get a move on.

-They're in the heart of the facility, the beating pulse of warmth and chemical goo and fumes surrounding them on all sides, and _just a few doors more_ , Gadget thinks as they're sprinting. _Just a few doors more, right_. With Amy leading the way they run across bridges, jump from platform to platform, take shortcuts not meant to be taken because the factory robots can barely jump, Gadget knows their shitty design well by now. Shitty. Well, admittedly they pack a punch…

 _But breakable_ , he reasons as he slams his Wispon into a robot and the head actually separates from its body, bouncing against a wall. Cass blow a few robots off of the road with their own Wispon, and Amy wields her hammer with great strength and even greater anger.

They're actually making it up until the point that they're almost there.

"Well gosh darn. What are we supposed t' do now?" Cass ask, sounding like they've already given up, made peace with it, and are now just merrily going along with whatever is happening. Gadget stares down at the door they need to take, surrounded by enemies, and tries to think. From the ledge where they're perched there's a single staircase, but climbing it down means immediately getting spotted. They could try to jump, but that's risky, and there's no bridges in the air, no platforms to use.

Nothing but the crowd of robots down below.

Gadget scans the ceiling again, the high walls, the absence of anything but those small vents and cameras. Then there's movement, and Gadget stares. One of the small vents (only about twenty metres above the ground, _haha_ ) has something sticking out if it. It might be some new kind of vent-cleaning robot, but. It doesn't really look like-

-Then a hand, an _actual hand_ in a grey glove just sticks out, _giving them a thumbs-up_ , and Gadget really ought to point that hand out right now. He opens his mouth but then there's an explosion of light, and the balcony they're perched on trembles and alarms go off blaring, a red-white lightshow opening up-

" _Now_ ," Amy hisses, like she was just waiting for this, and together they run. The mass of robots is confused and Team Amy are nearly all the way to the door when the robots get their gears back in order and start shooting.

Gadget ducks and draws his Wispon.

-Gadget and Cass fight more desperately than determinedly, maybe, but in any case they're trying to _reach the door_ , so defense is better than offense. Amy however seems to have an entirely different idea, as Gadget realises far too late with rising dread-

Amy had charged into the horde of robots and why isn't she back yet, _why_? Cass and Gadget are being pushed backward through the door, nothing but robots in front of them, _and where is Amy?_ They have to shut the door, there's too many robots-

"AMY!" Gadget shouts, trying to push forward but the flames aren't enough.

"Shut the door! SHUT IT!" Amy screams at them, yells at them to _just get to the terminal, it'll be alright_ , but Gadget can't move won't move until Cass slam their hands on the button and the door starts to lower.

Oh _Chaos_ Amy's gonna _die_ and it'll be them who killed her, killed the one who put the resistance together, who saved them all. Rex and Amy and _everyone_ , all because of…

"We need to go," mutter Cass, or maybe it was Gadget who mumbled to himself.

Broken robots parts crunch beneath their feet as they walk. The room at the end of the hallway. The room with the screens, with the blue blue lights… They walk on, but Cass' breathing is so loud in the silence. It's alarming, but then they're _there_ , and then they have to work.

Screens. A keyboard, some kind of something, made of metal and concrete and tyranny. Cass keeps coughing and coughing and Gadget thinks they must have inhaled toxic fumes, but then why isn't Gadget coughing, too? There's some sort of liquid dripping from the ceiling – it looks disgusting. It looks like blood. Amy's blood, seeping red and wet through the plaster…

There's a button he should be pressing.

Red, possibly. Blood-red. Gadget slumps against the console and looks, tries to clear his head. There's a lot of small keys and a button that's hidden beneath a glass casing, and as soon as he sees it Gadget raises his Wispon on instinct and slams it down on the button. The glass shatters.

Then the lights go out, all at once.

Then everything goes dead quiet.

* * *

 **.**

 **A/N:** _the surprise vent-crawler is of course Whisper the Wolf from the IDW comics._


	13. Don't tempt fate

**Guest reply!**

 **MadameMirage77:** Hey again, thanks for your comment! And so far nope, no Rough and Tumble (I mean maybe later on but they'd be rly minor characters in that case) and no Fiona either. Regarding Amy though: I know! And there has been a few portrayals of her that were rly good, and I just – she could be great. (I don't rly have a problem with Boom!Amy tbh but I haven't watched season 2 so hmm) Thanks for sticking by! And cliffhangers are good ;)

 **.**

* * *

"Chemical Plant is down."

Tails cheers internally and continues typing. Sometimes it feels as if typing and coding are the only things he's good for, but then again, no one _else_ is actually any good at it apart from Tekno or Espio, maybe Rouge, so he's the leading expert here on _something_. Also an expert on repairs, spaceships, coffee-chugging for children, and working for 20 hours in a row – thankfully Sonic doesn't know what kind of hours Tails held before they got him back. He'd take it as his big-brotherly duties to chew him out for it…

-At least it won't take long to dismantle the defense system of the Death Egg now that Chemical Plant is down. And speaking of Sonic: he better get down to the hangar _now_ if he isn't already there… but first: "Any word from Amy or Fog?"

"Fog said that they'll be returning with the ships to space as soon as possible, but there's been no messages from Amy…" Tekno trails off. They stare at each other.

"She'll call soon, she's probably just occupied right now." Tails knows that, logically, she _is_ almost certainly busy right now. Chemical Plant is still dangerous even if all the tech is shut down – heck, she could be trapped somewhere! Or a hundred other terrible fates that Tails is not allowed to consider at this moment, because if they don't get Sonic to the Death Egg in time then they'll _all_ be in big trouble and then they'll be of no use to anybody…

Just work. It's just a few lines more, and then…

-[Shutdown complete]

 _It's up to you now, Sonic._

* * *

 **Nearby…**

The lightshow battle rages on outside of ARK, with Sonic watching impatiently ( _let me do something_!) through a window after having been summoned down to the hangar. The main floors had been crowded and buzzing with frantic activity and panic – and down here it's just Sonic… oh, and that one mechanic lady who told him to _shut up_ and is now preparing one of the smaller ships that came without weapons, and therefore weren't of any use. (Unless you just want to try and leave the ARK in a mad rush and hope for the best…)

The elevator hisses behind Sonic. He turns excitedly, expecting the pilot but instead seeing- "Rouge?"

"Oh don't look so shocked," says the bat herself, strolling into the hangar. "I know how to pilot."

"Well let's go then, c'mon." Sonic practically bounces over to their ship, where the busy mechanic lady looks up and huffs. She slams an open panel shut with a bang and says,

"No weapons, no anythin'. Watch out or get toasted."

"Got it," says Rouge with a mock-salute. "Stupid you guys don't have more armed ships..."

"We can't all be Tails," Sonic replies absently, slipping inside the ship. The interior is all in shades of blue, and when he looks closer the controls indicate the ship originally came from Apotos, though obviously there's been a bunch of modifications made. There's room for the pilot, one more, and some cargo – and already there are some crates stacked there, and when Sonic goes snooping, they're full of those bombs Rouge uses. Aha.

"How do these things even work?" Sonic holds one of the bombs up as Rouge climbs inside.

"You press on the heart and then they'll blow in a few seconds." Sonic stares and Rouge smirks. "Don't worry, I modified these. They'll blow in fifteen minutes after activation."

"…Five minutes would be enough."

"Don't fucking tempt fate."

They get into their seats. Rouge starts the engine and the dashboard display comes online, telling them that there's no weather in space and exclaiming that it can't find any maps of the area and is not sure whether this place actually exists, _please try again_. Rouge slams a button and the display shuts down.

The massive hangar doors start to slide open, showing darkness and stars and an explosion of red against a shimmering blue barrier.

-It's crazy how many people that've been roped into this. When the world split apart Sonic was the first and last line of defense, and now they've got whole towns' worth of people with them, even more on the surface. They've got people out in those ships holding off Eggman's fleet from reaching ARK, a space colony also full of their people – like wow. The resistance really grew while he waited for his execution, and now he's making decisions that could affect thousands of people – while those people watch him make them.

Sonic isn't sure where he's going with this. He's no good at following orders, going solo would be better. Just that – it'd be so much easier to go solo. So much less in the balance. It'd be easy, it'd be fast and fun and reckless and none of his friends would follow him (except Tails), and then he'd die.

Then Infinite would kill him.

(then what about Tails?)

-Rouge yanks a lever and the ship abruptly shoots out of the hangar, and she takes them flying below the ARK, where all the railings and whatnot still hang around. Sonic remembers how Knuckles once made them crash _right here_ because of his damn Master Emerald pieces and grins to himself, Rouge making the ship blast off toward the shield while swearing quietly about the constructions. (and it's not _bad_ being part of a group, Sonic thinks. Even a drifter longs for home when it's storming)

Anyway, power-of-friendship talk aside, Sonic harbors a personal hate for the Death Egg and blowing that ugly excuse of a space station out of the sky is going to be a _pleasure_. Just, if it was _only_ him then it wouldn't have been as much as a duty as it is now. So that's – something he thinks about and gets uncomfortable about when he's got any time to think. Like how he _really_ wants to blow the Death Egg up, but also he _really_ doesn't want to return there, so-

"Hold on big blue," Rouge warns, seconds before sending their ship flying through the shield surrounding ARK, "Space battle up ahead."

Missiles shoot past them and an explosion blooms just as they're swerving around two smaller Egg Fleet ships, projectiles following them through a cloud of dust. Sonic sits on the edge of his seat with his fingers itching for the controls, remembering how it was to ride the Tornado back on Mobius-

An explosion rocks one of the largest Egg Fleet ships which is right ahead of them, and chunks of metal the size of cars splinter off and block their path. Rouge makes their ship roll to the side, but something still smacks into them and Sonic can do nothing but grit his teeth as the ship's interior lighting goes from blue to alarming red.

"C'mon, c'mon…"

Rouge makes a loop while trying to avoid a missile, and almost dives straight into another ship. The view from the window becomes a blur of black and red as she takes the ship through a series of spinning manoeuvres to avoid crashing into the enemy fleet, at last pulling them out of the mess and darting away. And then suddenly the Death Egg is basically right up in their face and Sonic stops cheering.

Their ship flies closer, now out of the way from any weapons fire. Sonic and Rouge stare out at the space station, looming and dark. And without any defense.

-for as much introspection as Sonic had time to whine about, it sure would be a shame if he now got himself killed here. Caution is key, eh?

They slip in through an open hangar entrance, landing without any trouble. Inside the Death Egg the lights are all dimmed, and after Rouge has killed the engine an eerie quiet reigns…

"…So how do we do this?"

"Just grab some bombs and head to the heart of this place. I'll wait with the ship."

"Well alright then." Sonic removes his seatbelt and goes to grab himself some bombs. So he's got fifteen minutes after he activates the first one – better just target everything that looks important, then. Oh, and be back in time, obviously. Though that shouldn't be a problem…

* * *

 **Ten minutes later…**

He runs through large and empty halls, dimly lit and sometimes with the echo of his footsteps as the only sound. Deactivated laser cannons, robots standing still in corners like statues or zombies. The _memories_. Sonic's hand aches and he keeps turning around, switching lanes, taking shortcuts because – because it's too large, too empty in here. Racing against some clock he's set himself…

He can't wait for this place to be gone and spacedust.

Getting rid of this ugly lump of floating metal will pretty much solve all their problems, won't it? Tails said it was this space station that powers the Phantom Ruby, which means when it's gone Infinite can eat dust. Hah! Honestly, taking out the Death Egg would've been pretty damn important even without it being, you know, potentially used to destroy the resistance in one blow.

He's already stuck a bunch of explosives in what he judged the most important room, and then he used five more minutes to find the machine rooms and put some bombs there, and _hey_ , still five minutes left. No point in hanging around here anymore than necessary – this place sucks – so he starts heading for the hangar earlier than he needs to.

Obliterating this place can't undo all the evil it's done, but it sure will stop it from doing any more.

He's almost at the hangar when he runs into a locked door. Frowning, he takes a turn left – and runs into another locked door. He backtracks, going to the right and running through a long corridor which seems to lead right out into space-

Until Sonic sees that no, it's just another locked door.

 _-where am I going?_

He stops and tries to think clearly.

He could break the door.

Sonic looks up again, determined, and starts to collect chaos energy-

-and halts immediately, pulse rocketing, spinning around with fists raised to face – nothing. Empty corridor. But he _feels_ it, he can sense it as clear as an emerald, that terrible overwhelming-

"What have we here?"

Sonic spins around, and there he is, glowing faintly red in the dimness, feet barely touching the floor. He looks so out of place but still it fits too well, and if the walls were whiter and the lights harsher then Sonic would've thought that everything up until this was a just a dream. A dream where he could do what he wanted and die where he wanted instead of slowly waiting and waiting for-

"You in time-out or what?" Sonic asks, willing his voice to stay steady and playful. "Egghead finally had enough of you running the show in Shamar or what?"

"Shamar was but an ant on my path," drawls Infinite, his head cocked to the side, the hair moving just barely in some non-existent wind. The Phantom Ruby pulses deep red in his chest, and Sonic looks for exits, of which there are none. What little chaos energy he's got in hand feels like a candle compared to Infinite's wildfire, and Infinite says, "You, on the other hand – you're a mouse, a clever little mouse that has eluded the traps and gotten its cheese, thinking it's safe… Until the cat comes out to play."

"You know you're a jackal, right?"

No Silver here. No Gadget. No anybody-

Infinite throws out his hand and a cascade of red shapes fly forward, Sonic ducking at the last second. His limbs don't feel like they should and this scares Sonic more than anything else, that just a- just a few bad weeks, a few bad scars could make Infinite seem like something he can't fight-

"You can't win," Infinite tells him. "You can't win! You struggle along like vermin, _but you can never win._ "

"We can't surrender," Sonic spits back, hands clenching till it hurts. "We cannot lose, we can't give up or lie down and _I'll never stop trying._ You-"

"What will you do," Infinite interrupts in a low growl, "When all your allies are _dead_? When I've burned every country and killed every fighter-"

"As long as I'm here that will _never_ happen."

Infinite stares down at him with his one yellow eye. "Then what will your _dear_ friends do, when I've killed _you_?"


	14. Those who stand in our way

**A/N:** _…well a few of you were worried about Shadow :) in other news i am Tired, and sorry about the delay as usual._

 **Guest reply!**

 **MadameMirage77:** _ahaha thanks! :D oh Sonic indeed. I'm trying to balance his apprehension of Infinite with his desire to take him down so I'm just hoping things don't look weird. (you liked the Rouge and Sonic dynamic? Thanks again!) and Ratchet & Clank. Huh._

* * *

A thunderstorm of a battle is wearing to its end.

Behind the broken ship parts and metal splinters floating in space, behind the bursts of fire, hangs a massive space station glittering in the dark.

A child looks out through a window full of stars for just a second, thinking about his brother, and then he returns to his work.

Next to him sits the Commander of the resistance, glancing at that same window and thinking about that very same person. _He's too stubborn to die_ , he thinks resolutely. _And she won't either._

On the other side of the battlefield, far away, there's the second space station, a huge silhouette against the background of stars. Inside all the robots stand deactivated and the lights are all running on emergency power, the place blanketed in the silence and darkness of space. In the lower level hangars waits a woman with a ship. She looks out at the void and counts down in her head, seconds ticking by. Her lips curl into a small mirthless smile.

…Just one wall away in the corridor next door stands a hedgehog, stubbornly looking his enemy in the eye, chin up and fists raised. His enemy looks down at him with anger and distaste and satisfaction, already mad that he didn't kill him back in that forest, how _dares_ he come to this place and look Infinite in the face? _Rat_.

Infinite throws out a hand- and dark and dizzying power makes chills go down Sonic's spine, makes his head feel fuzzy and the walls creak and groan. Pink crystals shoot forth and Sonic drops to the floor, letting them fly over his head before springing back up – and promptly falling sideways to land on the wall. Infinite floats effortlessly in the centre of corridor, unbothered by this new gravity of his own making, and Sonic swears that he smirks as he lets another wave of energy blow through the room-

-Sonic ducks again and throws himself toward Infinite, but he just flips the room around _again_ and Sonic stumbles and falls, bouncing up from the opposite wall. _He's just playing with me_ , Sonic knows, and he grinds his teeth.

His time's running out.

Infinite strikes and a blast of red light sears Sonic's shoulder and he grunts, biting down on a shout, ducking with determination. Side-stepping with murderous intent. He just isn't _getting anywhere_. And time's far more dangerous here than Infinite-

(At least if Sonic dies here then so will Infinite, which is about as good as it gets for a scenario where you accidentally blow yourself up in an effort to save your friends…)

Sonic grins. There's an upside to everything, ain't there?

"Why are you smiling?" Infinite hisses, and red light burns through the room, Sonic lifting his arms to shield his face, and "Little pest," Infinite drawls, and a blow hits Sonic in the stomach, and he stumbles back, dragging in a breath of painful air and raising his fists. Chin up, jokes on. He's taken down _gods_ , like c'mon, Infinite's just a mortal after all ( _keep telling yourself that_ ). And if the only time they have left is a couple minutes before the space station blows, then Infinite is just as powerless as Sonic.

Hey, that's not bad.

"You know, it's kinda funny," Sonic starts, and Infinite's eyes narrow. He's floating just a couple metres away from him, and Sonic stands on the wall, or maybe it's the floor, and smirks up at him. "How can it take you so _long_ to do _everything_? Defeating Shamar… taking down me…"

Sonic ducks a blow, ducks for two shots of energy, but then suddenly Infinite is right up in his face and he's hitting away his arm before Infinite can- "Triumph takes time," Infinite sneers, and he's got a hand at Sonic's throat, and so Sonic aims a risky hit at the ruby in his chest-

-and it hits and artificial gravity takes hold of them again, and they crash into the floor. Sonic's arm hurts and his throat hurts from Infinite crushing it and he scrambles for something to take hold of, grabs Infinite's arm and twists. Kicks at infinite and there's a blast of red, but Sonic flips them over on the floor so that he's on top and the ruby… The ruby pulses a sickly red, so deep it's almost purple, like dark chaos energy, but it's a weak spot alright so-

Infinite catches his arm mid-strike, face twisted in a snarl, and Sonic gets his other arm up- and Infinite crushes his wrist in a grip which _ow_ , damn him, what's Sonic gonna do with both his hands-? Oh right. Knees.

-he jabs him hard in the stomach and Infinite throws him off with a murderous look, and then it's all-out war. Infinite nearly blasts one of Sonic's arms clean off, but Sonic easily side-steps and lunges for Infinite, and then he's blocking Sonic's punch while going for his throat while Sonic aims for the ruby-

And the ceiling shudders. Sonic is hit with the surprise of an immense sound akin to buildings collapsing, and wait, oh no-

"What is this!" Infinite growls, throwing out a hand so that red light spills forth- but nothing else. No damage. No cubes, no bending reality to his will, just a bunch of useless light.

Sonic sees his perfect chance and _reacts_ , leaping right into Infinite while curling into a ball, slamming into the jackal and sending him crashing into a wall. Hah, take that! The whole place is starting to shake but at least he's given Infinite a black eye.

-sheesh, now he _really_ needs to get outta here.

He sprints back through the corridor, away from Infinite who's growling where he lies, and Sonic dives through the first open door he spots which definitely wasn't here before- and then he's stumbling inside of the hangar, another shockwave rocking the floor beneath him. The ship, small and unarmed as it is, makes his heart stumble with relief ( _what a day it's been_ ), and he waves frantically to Rouge as he runs.

The ship starts and the door falls open, Sonic jumping inside.

He staggers over to his seat as the floor shakes beneath them, and Rouge starts swearing, trying to get the ship off the ground. "So," she grits out, as the ceiling starts caving in. "Is there a reason you're this late?"

"Infinite."

Rouge gives him a look.

"Don't worry about that clown, just go, alright, go-"

"What does it _look_ like I'm doing?"

Rouge yanks the ship into the air just as the floor cracks in two, and then she takes the sharpest turn possible in the rapidly collapsing hangar and blasts out into space.

(This _really_ hasn't been how Sonic imagined this week would go…)

* * *

 **Currently…**

The flash of light is visible even on the ARK.

Tails looks up because all of a sudden Tekno and Ray are cheering, and Knuckles points at the screens, showing live footage from the cameras Tails put up outside. A bright searing white flares on the screen for just a second, and then there's only debris flying outwards, great big chunks of the Death Egg. That was – that was the Death Egg exploding.

Exploding. Up in flames. _Gone_.

"They did it." Knuckles sounds almost disbelieving.

"Yes," Tails says, smiling until he remembers how much they still have to do. But at least the most immediate threat is now gone with a bang.

* * *

 **Later…**

As wonderful as it would've been to lie down and snack on some tasteless rations, Rouge would have rather made sure nothing else was gonna kill them before taking a shower (like that was gonna happen with the water being rationed). When they landed Sonic immediately bounced off to talk to his people, and Rouge got as far as three steps away from the ship before Knuckles and Tails caught her too.

"Heya, Knuckie. Missed me?" She says sweetly before he can reply, "Of course you did."

"I'm so glad you made it!" Tails is hugging Sonic, who's hiding a wince, but if Rouge notices then of course Tails will too. He does indeed. "Your shoulder!"

"It's just a scratch. Or technically a burn, but a very minor burn-" Sonic waves away his little brother's concern quickly. "Besides, my stomach hurts worse-"

"Did you crack a rib _again_ -"

Knuckles starts talking over Tails' rant before it can really take off; "Yes, yes, great you're both still kicking. But sadly the crisis isn't over yet."

"What do you mean?" _What_? What is it? What's stopping Rouge from finally getting some peace and quiet?

"The Egg Fleet is still attacking us." Knuckles looks at Tails for more information, so everyone else does too.

"Yes," Tails agrees. "Some ships are still out there and fighting us, but we're already doing everything we can to get rid of them."

"So there's nothing else we can-"

"Unfortunately not!" Tails is quick to reassure them, "Don't worry though, the Egg Fleet seems to be doing much worse now that the space station's gone."

"That's all?" Rouge raises an eyebrow. _Wow_ , things are almost going well-

"No."

 _Ah well._

Knuckles looks serious as he says, "We don't have any news from Amy."

Sonic frowns. "She's probably just busy…" He looks at Knuckles.

Tails says neutrally, "Apparently one of the ships took quite some damage in the landing, but the others should all be returning in a few hours. Obviously they have to try and gather everybody before setting off…" He trails off, and then all the boys look at each other in a tense silence.

Rouge breaks it. "That gal's tough as nails, she'll be just fine."

"Yeah," Sonic says quickly. "She's got her hammer, right? And she's not alone."

"…And _that_ was all?"

Knuckles sighs. "Just let me check my schedule… Though _you_ can go, Rouge."

"Aw, thanks." She winks, and Knuckles immediately gets very busy trying to find his communicator while Sonic snickers. Yeah, they'd be fine on their own. Great, good, now Rouge just had another certain hedgehog to find…

* * *

 **? ? ?**

He wakes and he's exhausted.

 _Where am I?_ Who cares, certainly not him.

He drifts off again eventually. Slips back into dreamless darkness. Knows no more.

( _is something missing…?)_

* * *

 **Later…**

The pheasant lady who reigns over the medical ward gives Rouge a scrutinising look when she shows up, but ultimately she says nothing and just waves her in. Rouge scrutinises the pheasant right back, and then she realises she's met this woman before. Someplace, sometime before _everything_. It clicks when she's already two corridors away: that pheasant must have been one of the nurses at GUN…

Can't be many left.

GUN had it pretty shit in the capital, and nothing's gotten any better. They've been left to die. But the resistance is going strong and Rouge should be _here_ , at the heart of it all, with the rest of Team Dark and Sonic's gang of losers. They're going to have to win this and Rouge has to be there, but still it's… (Having a functioning conscience ain't so hot after all)

The infirmary is quiet. They're right between battles now, so that's to be expected. Or more like: no one's returned yet, harmed or unharmed, except for her and Sonic.

Rouge finds Shadow's bed eventually. She drags over a chair and sits down next to him, looking him over. Light bandages around his head. Some hospital things surrounding him, but not many enough to be concerning. He's sleeping and whoa, crazy thing. Rouge is sitting at somebody's bedside. Again.

Waiting for someone to wake up.

"Hello?"

Rouge looks at the door. There's a white cat in an equally white coat, also holding a white notepad, standing there. "Are you his…" The cat pauses like he can't decide, settling for, "Do you know him?"

"I'm his best friend." At the end of the day, that's where they end up, isn't it?

"Good, good – oh, Miss Rouge, yes? Your name was mentioned in the records…" _Get to the point._ "Ah, but yes! Thing is, there's been some issues with Mister Shadow's chaos energy flow-"

"What do you mean?"

"Well. So far it's nothing life-threatening… but… we don't know, what exactly is... wrong. His chaos energy levels are completely off the charts so I don't know how to-"

"And?" Rouge asks sharply.

"…I have a theory though."


	15. Turn of the tide

**Guest reply!**

 **MadameMirage77:** _hi again! Glad you mentioned the replicas because I'd nearly forgotten about them (oops). And yep, if Rouge stars in any romance in this it's gonna be with Knuckles. News on Amy soon, news on Shadow right below ;) Thanks for the review!_

 _Happy December everyone!_

 **.**

* * *

He opens his eyes and everything's fuzzy and blurry white. Then he turns his head a little, and sees a steel-grey door, and he remembers: the medical ward. Talking to Rouge. Getting that damn chip out. And everyone else… out there, fighting, and he's alone in the infirmary. Not doing anything useful. Not doing anything other than lying down, and Shadow closes his eyes again. _My head should be hurting more_ , he thinks.

 _But._

 _It's done now, isn't it?_

He lets out a big breath. _It's over._

-There's a sudden sound like someone's moving, and Shadow's eyes fly open as he looks to the left. And draped over a chair is _Rouge_ , head lolling to the side as she sleeps (she'll complain about her neck later). Shadow smiles to himself because no one can see it happening, anyway. "Hey," he says. His voice sounds like shit, he tries clearing his throat. "What time is it?"

Rouge startles awake and then just stares at him for a few seconds. "Shadow," she says, roughly. "Are you – how are you feeling?"

Shadow gives her a look. "I'm… good. Well-rested."

The expression Rouge has got makes a niggling little shard of doubt dig into Shadow's relief. Rouge says bluntly, "I have something to tell you."

"Get it over with, then."

Rouge's mouth curls into a brief almost-smile. "A doctor – the guy who did your," she taps the side of her head, "-surgery, tried to explain it. It's not really complicated, it's… Well, he thinks that the chip, in addition to being able to act as an inhibitor or controller, was also blocking off some things." Rouge takes a pause and Shadow wants to tell her not to stop, keep talking, _what the hell has been done-_

"It's been stopping you from ageing, says the doc." Rouge looks at him in this way that just screams _tragic_ and Shadow just wants things to _quit happening_ , for like two days, what the hell. He's more mad than scared, and _this_ is the moment that he realises that as of two seconds ago he's _got_ something to be scared about. How is it even possible? He's the Ultimate Lifeform, how-

" _What_ ," and the word sounds like it's been torn out of his mouth with violence.

"Doctor said you're a mortal now." Rouge explains, "First he had no idea what was happening and thought your chaos energy was starting to kill you, then I said you're immortal, and long story short-"

" _No_." Shadow bits out. He was created on ARK, and now it looks like this place will be what destroys him too.

"I'm sorry," Rouge says, in that same way she says exactly everything, but her face is painful to look at and now Shadow's head is hurting. This isn't possible, he's immune to all diseases, he's immortal and unchanging and he was created to be _Ultimate_. Why the hell would the Professor do something like this, why-

He feels abruptly nauseous.

 _So you won't take the chip out._

That can't be it.

No. Shadow has to be sure on this, it's not that, no. No.

"Hey," Rouge says softly, and Shadow keeps staring at his hands. "…the Death Egg's gone. I know this is… well, but at least you don't have to worry about _it_ in particular anymore."

"Ha-ha," Shadow says flatly, and then Rouge says nothing, so they sit in silence while Shadow fights against the urge to react. Everything he thinks feels dangerous and it feels like a shock every time he realises, _I'm mortal. I could die right here_. But the doctor could be wrong, it could be—

It feels like something _has_ actually happened. To him.

He's just feeling it like that because Rouge told him.

He's the Ultimate Lifeform, how could he lose his immortality? Why does it feel like—like he's falling through space while silver light peels off of him in moments, the planet getting closer and closer? This can't be real, it has to be something else… how else would he keep going on?

* * *

 **Far, far away…**

It feels like he was down there in the factory for a week. It can't have been more than a few hours, but now the sunlight and wind on his face feels like he's died and gone to a better place. Cass is breathing like they've got something stuck in their throat, but Gadget isn't a medic (he's starting to regret that) and Cass insisted they were good to go so what the fuck else could Gadget have done?

Finding the way out took so much time that Gadget believed he'd never get out, but Cass managed to interpret a map settled into the wall and Gadget honestly thought that he would be having a breakdown in response to that, right there. Everything was too much. They got out – Gadget helping Cass when they staggered, Cass showing Gadget the way, and at last-

They left Amy behind. Rex's dead body, Amy-

 _Please let her be alive._

What's the point in trying to help if you just do more harm than good?

* * *

 **Later…**

Sonic looks like he's ready to start climbing the walls, Tails claims he's working but Knuckles saw over his shoulder that he's just anxiously flipping blueprints around on the screen, Mighty and Ray look like they're at their neighbour's funeral and forgot to wear black, and Espio looks as calm and serene as a damn pond with water lilies.

Amy is not even here.

That's the problem, that's it. The remaining ships will all return in 50 minutes or less, and they've had almost no updates on their journey. If they've spontaneously exploded, then the resistance won't know until… well, until it's been a while, and they've got zero messages still. Knuckles doesn't even get what he's supposed to _do_ now: make a speech? Send out scouts? …Wait? Amy could be in danger, and what are the rest of them all doing? Wasting time.

Sonic starts pacing around the room. Knuckles asks out loud, "Where's Rouge?"

"Visiting Shadow," Tails replies.

"Visiting Shadow? Where?" Sonic stops pacing.

"He's had a surgery and is in the medical ward," says Tails. "If you need more details you can ask Rouge-"

Sonic's out the door before Tails is even finished with his sentence.

-Tails turns to face Knuckles with a grin. "Hah," he drawls. "I finally got Sonic to go to the infirmary by his own choice! Now Silver and Amy both owe me rings."

* * *

 **In a little bit…**

The medical ward is a depressing place where they keep you captive for _days_ even though you're basically fine, and so Sonic takes the time to go and say hi to Silver before going to say hi to Shadow. Silver's bed isn't that hard to find, and Silver starts waving excitedly as he approaches. Poor guy's still got his mouth all wired shut so he can't exactly talk. Sonic gives him a high five and says, "We blew up Egghead's space station!"

-Silver literally starts applauding him, but then a nurse turns around and fixes a glare on them so he has to stop.

Once she's turned her back again Sonic asks, "Do you know where Shadow is?" Silver doesn't. Sonic tells him that he'll see him later, and goes to find Shadow. Or Rouge, he supposes.

A surgery though. For what? Shadow just doesn't _get_ injured, it's kinda his thing… So what could it even be? After a minute of contemplation as he tries to find his way through the corridors, Sonic gives up with the theories and smiles wryly. _Ah, such fun!_ Now he can be worried about Amy, _or_ Shadow, or _both_!

(by Chaos he hates waiting.)

At least he knows where Shadow is. If Shadow needs help (if anyone on ARK needs help) Sonic can be there in just a moment. With Amy, he doesn't even know where she is, spaceship or factory, Mobius or empty space… But why didn't he hear about Shadow needing a surgery? Did he get… like, injured or something? By what? How bad is it? He'll find out in just a minute but in the meantime it's gnawing on his nerves… Shadow's a friend, after all.

Yeah. Friend. Hah.

-He eventually finds the right door, because Rouge is sitting on a bench outside while rubbing her temples like she's got a headache. _Doesn't look good_. Sonic stuffs his rapidly rising concern in a box and kicks into his soon overflowing mental corner of shit he doesn't have the time to deal with, and says to Rouge, "…So I take it this surgery isn't… going very well?"

"It's already over with." Rouge drags a hand across her face. "And _no_ , hell, what does it look like?"

"What happened? How's Shadow-"

"Fine for now." Rouge doesn't remove her head from her hands, but she doesn't sound quite as mad when she says, "He's not gonna die today, blue, take it easy. Why are you even here?"

"I'm visiting?"

"Then shoo, go. Move along." Rouge waves at the door.

 _Well alrighty._ He's starting to feel pretty alarmed, but gosh, he _just_ got back from the Death Egg, after blowing it up and also fighting Infinite: the stress is just another layer of icing being put on the cake of stress. Not that he _is_ stressed, he's cool as a cucumber. Cool as a day in Holoska! He's got this, Shadow's probably just as fine as Rouge says, and Sonic tries to give Rouge a comforting pat on the shoulder as he passes her on his way to the door.

She gives him a look that spells out, _really dude_ in neon letters.

Sonic doesn't know what else to do but shrug. To escape he opens the door, steps inside, and then he almost immediately locks eyes with Shadow. After a second of staring Sonic turns away to close the door.

Shadow's eyes continue to follow his little walk as Sonic goes up to sit in the chair by Shadow's bed. He's got some bandage neatly wrapped around his head, but that's pretty much the only thing that Sonic immediately thinks of as an injury. _Injury_ , meaning that Sonic realises now that not only did Shadow have a surgery, it was a _head_ surgery. Shadow himself looks vaguely pissed off about it, but that's just a more annoyed variant of his neutral face, and he's awake, right, so…

"What's up?"

* * *

 **Right now…**

His solitude is broken by Sonic. Since Shadow told Rouge to leave his thoughts have been straying farther and farther into the dark but he just can't stop them – is he still immortal? There's no way he can test it, so what about his immunity to diseases then? …And what the hell does he do if he's actually a mortal now? He can't— deal with it.

-and then Sonic walks inside. Sits down. Looks intently at Shadow and says, _what's up_?

"Head surgery." Shadow scoffs.

"Are you…" Sonic trails off and instead says, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

"Really?"

"Yes," Shadow grits out. This is completely 100% _his_ problem, not Sonic's or Rouge's or the resistance's, it's just him who's suddenly… vulnerable. He can't make sense of it and it's driving him mad and what if it's _true_ , what if it isn't, did that doctor just indirectly kill him, at least the fucking chip is gone but at _what price_? His powers, his chaos energy is still there, but what about—

Shadow rolls over on the bed so Sonic can't see his face.

"Ok, fine," Sonic says in response to that. "But if you wanna talk," he offers, "Then I'll listen. Anytime."

In the past, there used to be moments where Shadow just _could not understand_ why Sonic saved him back on ARK. The chance that they _both_ would just have burned out of their super forms while falling back to Mobius had been stupidly high; Sonic had been completely crazy to dive after him and pull him back, and still he did it. After that Shadow owed him his life, and then the Black Arms War happened, and- wait. The Black Arms blood in him. Is that what's causing this?

Shadow's mind hasn't stopped running since Rouge first told him about this, and the damn doctor hasn't shown his face yet, and Shadow cannot deal with it… And Sonic _did_ say something, just a moment ago, and Shadow hasn't replied yet, and Sonic's chatty and reckless and often a fool to boot, but Shadow still doesn't want to offend him by giving him the cold shoulder but that's what he _always_ does, isn't it? Rouge takes it all in stride, and Shadow always talks with Omega the few times they get the chance to talk face-to-face, but Sonic…

Shadow's really got at fucking things up.

"Thank you."

"Oh." Sonic chuckles. He doesn't sound very happy. Then he says, "In case Rouge didn't tell you, we destroyed the Death Egg-"

"I know."

"Great," Sonic says. Then, "You're… not in pain, are you?"

"No," Shadow replies, almost startled. Does Sonic even know- "The surgery went relatively… well. It was nothing major." The sentence echoes in his head: _"Doctor said you're a mortal now…"_

He hasn't fought this long to then get this chaos-blasted thrown off-balance all thanks to some pesky _mortality_ , he cannot. His powers are all still there, and he could die just fine before, nothing has changed. This might not even be true. (can't be, can't be, he's the Ultimate-) It is only ageing. It is _nothing_. He's handling it, but he can feel Sonic's eyes on him, and while it'd maybe have made him giddy if he wasn't in a damned infirmary, now it's just maddening. "Don't you have better things to do?" he snaps.

"Hey," Sonic says, and huffs. "I'm just visiting."

How nice.

Then it's quiet again until Sonic says ominously, "What's that?"

Shadow glances up. "…It's just a dent."

"' _A dent'_? I could put both my fists in there no problem!"

"Well, you have small hands."

"They're bigger than yours!"

"Hah," says Shadow dryly.

The hole Sonic spotted is just a chaos lance crack. The wall can't be hard to replace either way, and Shadow couldn't have cared less about plaster earlier. Still doesn't care. That wall is insignificant and Shadow _needed_ to know that he still could throw spears, if he hadn't been able to then, then what?

Sonic demands, "Why's there a hole in the wall, Shadow?"

-There's that laughable impulse to tell him exactly why he's… Shadow doesn't tell people. He only ever tells Rouge or Omega if something's wrong because that's a weakness, he cannot let others know. There's nobody he'd _want_ to know. (he'd want Rouge to know, and Omega, and perhaps Sonic. They're the only ones) This matter – it _could_ be important, but currently…

He's not the Ultimate Lifeform, there never was one, isn't it so?

His head is aching.

"A test," Shadow says. "As to see that my abilities are still in order."

"You can't just blow things up wherever you want!" Sonic groans. "Though your 'abilities' seem to be working just fine, why were you even worried?"

"Because," Shadow says. He makes a decision. "I've effectively lost my immortality and I needed to see that I hadn't… lost anything else as well."

"You've – what?" There's a sound like Sonic just leapt to his feet. " _What_?"

"I can _age_ ," Shadow says through gritted teeth, sitting up to face Sonic. "Something went wrong in the surgery when they tried to remove a _chip_ that was in my fucking _head_ , and now I'm-"

"A _chip_?"

Perhaps he shouldn't have told Sonic.

"The Professor was a shrewd man." That's the most he'll ever say about it. "I'll start ageing, I'm-"

"-isn't that a good thing?"

They stare each other down.

"Is it _just_ ageing?" Sonic asks, leaning close. "Or are there any-"

" _Does it matter_?!" He feels like he's been slowly slipping into a panic attack ever since Rouge told him, and he hates that Sonic is here to see it, hated that Rouge was here to see it, he wants- "I don't know! _I don't know_ , perhaps I've lost my immunity to diseases and enhanced healing too, or maybe I'll need to eat every day like the rest of you, or maybe I'll just die tomorrow-"

 _Pathetic_. Shadow the Hedgehog, defeated by something everyone else in the whole world lives with day after day.

"You won't, right?" Sonic says. "You can't just die tomorrow, that's…"

"People die all the time!"

"Those people _aren't you_! Those people are dying because the planet is at war, and we need you here to help us win it!" Sonic nearly shouts at him. "You won't die, see, _I_ haven't yet, Tails hasn't yet, and you're not gonna die in this either, we'll win the war and then you can-"

"Then I can… what?"

"Get a house in the mountains and learn to play the violin, I don't know! Whatever you want! Your odds to get through all this are just as good as mine!"

Shadow takes a moment to rub a hand over his face. He feels rather like a tired old man, but there's no way he's actually ageing that fast. And it's silly. It's terrifying… It's not really a change at all, is it? Unless more things have changed. Unless the doctor was lying. Unless—well. There's so many ways to die, but he can't let any of them finish him before the war is over, right, there's so many things he need to do…

(but now he won't be able to watch over and guard the planet for hundreds of years, like he thought he would.)

He may need some time.

"Thank you, Sonic. Now would you mind leaving?"

* * *

 **Not long after…**

The journey back to ARK didn't take as long as she thought it would.

When the spaceships – dirty and beat up, but at least only one is missing – start to dock in the hangars, there's already a whole crowd standing and cheering by the elevators. Amy can pick out Knuckles in the crowd, and Tails and Sonic, even Rouge and the Chaotix. Those who aren't waiting here are surely in the infirmary getting treated, and Blaze and Cream and Vanilla are safe elsewhere. She's got all her people accounted for, at last.

 _Just gotta make that last._

Amy may now have one arm in a sling, but she can still swing her hammer with the other.

As the door starts to open, Amy turns to the corner beside her where her companion sits with her weapon slung over her legs, a strange glowing red shard cradled in her hand. Amy asks with a grin, "So what d'you think? This place isn't so bad, there's a lot of unexplored floors to check out. You can even see the sun rise up over Mobius if you're up at the right time."

Whisper the Wolf shrugs in answer.


	16. Tonight

**Guest reply!**

 **MadameMirage77:** _thanks for the review! Hope you had a nice holiday. Anyway, yeah – Shadow's a mortal now. Which opens up new possibilities in a way, but on the other hand… well._

 **A/N:** _I foolishly hoped to have this chapter up like, right after New Year's. Goddammit. Happy valentines I guess?_

 _-so Infinite! Gets to talk a bit in this chapter. His characterisation was a pain to figure out. Anyway, he'll like… develop along with the story? You'll see. But anyway, as I was plotting all this out a long, long time ago, I talked some with **king needlemouse**_ _, which is how I decided on what to do with Infinite, and bref_ _ **: thanks king!**_ _Do yourselves a favour and_ _ **check out his account!**_

 _okay that's all, let's begin_

 _ **.**_

* * *

Robots are such pawns. It's disgusting how beneath him they are, there's no talking to them, no threatening them, no emotion, nothing. On and off. That's all they are, on and off, a weapon clutched between clunky cold metal fingers without any precision, circuits and metal. On and off. They feel nothing. They pilot the spaceship straight along the course the computer offers them, they pester him mechanically and relentlessly with bandage and needles until Infinite rips one of their arms off. Then some self-preservation protocol must kick in, because they leave him be. Not by choice. They don't do a single fucking thing by choice because they _have no brains and no will._

Organics are superior in every way.

Take the hedgehog. He was a funny one. A lively one. He's got to burn.

If the Doctor hadn't interfered then he'd already _be_ dead. The Doctor is weak. He _hesitates_. Where he should pull the trigger he waits, and the enemy is fast. You don't give them a single second. You crush them, scorch and salt the earth after them, kill them quickly, pull them out like weeds, stamp out every spark of rebellion-

The gem in his chest pulses.

On a mattress on the floor of a battered spaceship the jackal lies unmoving, nothing but the hitch and hiss of his breath to show how it feels as the Ruby knits his scorched skin back together.

The Ruby needs the jackal alive.

Breakable bones. Losable blood. Crushable organs. The jackal needs so much to function. The jackal is made of soft burnable flesh, muscles to be torn. He needs water and air and sleep. He mourns his fellow mercenaries and some warped innocence and pretends he doesn't by burning cities and spilling more blood, trying to bury that last little whisper of his old hatefully vulnerable self. He seethes, and the only thing he accepts is winning. He thinks himself invincible, because he will break everything else before it can get to him…

The last injury to go is the mark from where that hedgehog struck him.

No injuries last. No bones stay broken.

The last shred of (before, him-) of _weakness_ begs for it to end. It's never going to end. Infinite decides _when_ and _where_ and _how_ it will end, he's in control, he's the power and the Doctor is nothing, the so-called resistance is _nothing_ , and Infinite- _will not end it._

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

Amy takes her first three steps out on the hard metal floor of the hangar, smells the oil-scented air, and immediately after Tails is clasping her uninjured hand, almost vibrating with excitement, as Sonic carefully drapes an arm around her shoulders and Knuckles pats her on the back. Sonic sighs dramatically and teases, "I've been waiting to give you a victory hug for hours and now it seems like I can't."

"Poor, poor you." Amy pats his arm in mock-sympathy. "Congrats on blowing the Death Egg to smithereens."

"Thanks for helping me do it." His smile is so dazzlingly bright and happy, and Amy is suddenly very very glad she's no longer crushing on him. Chaos help whoever _is_.

"Not bad, Pinky," says a voice from behind Amy, and she huffs as Rouge steps forward and smirks at her. Following her are the Chaotix, and then more and more people who she doesn't know, others from her ship spilling out to meet them. Everyone's having their own reunions. The crowds are getting bigger and the noise is getting louder accordingly, and Amy can spot people hugging and people kissing. On the other end of the room the medics are rushing the wounded to the infirmary, but other than that – they're okay.

Then Amy spies Whisper hanging back by the ship and waves her over. Whisper puts away that weird red shard she's been carrying around and moves carefully through the crowd, coming to stand by Amy's side, and Amy breaks Sonic's and Rouge's hurried conversation to say cheerfully, "Whisper! Meet Sonic the Hedgehog."

Sonic quickly pulls himself together and offers her a hand. "Whisper you say? It's nice to meet you!"

Whisper gingerly shakes his hand and nods graciously at him.

"Where'd she come from?" Charmy wonders aloud.

"Yeah? She a new recruit?"

"Is that a Wispon…?"

Whisper seems to shrink in on herself so Amy quickly cuts over the chatter and says seriously, "Whisper saved my life. She's been working solo for a while but now she's agreed to join the resistance, so don't be rude to her."

"Aye aye!" Vector salutes and Sonic and Tails both laugh.

Espio shakes his head with a faint smile before stepping forward. "I'd be honoured to give you a tour of ARK, Miss Whisper?"

Rouge starts snickering. Whisper wisely ignores her and instead sizes Espio up. Then she says, so quiet Amy almost doesn't catch it, "Alright."

Surprisingly, Rouge is the one who then calls for a party. Usually it's Sonic. Though as soon as she's suggested it several groups of people surrounding them start to chant _party, party,_ so Amy supposes she was just representing the masses. Whisper pulls down her mask again at the commotion and Knuckles lets out a long-suffering sigh. The hangar is pretty much full of people, most of them now crowding up around Amy and her crew, since they are the least injured and the most famous. Sonic basks in the attention, Vector and Charmy start chanting along, and Amy smirks. She shoves at Knuckles with her uninjured elbow and waggles her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles. Then he raises his voice and says, "Let's throw a victory party!"

Several people close to them whoop. Sonic exclaims, "Three cheers for the resistance!"

The crowd erupts into screamed cheers.

They're alive, they just took down the Death Egg, _oh yeah_ , they're gonna fucking _win_ this.

* * *

 **Later…**

Metropolis looks like a dumpster both up close and from a distance. Infinite wants to tear up the streets and bring down the towers, wants ash in the air, needs it all _GONE._ The Doctor only fusses about details and wants it rebuilt, Infinite wants to snap wants to tell him there's no time: as long as it fills its purpose who cares how many rot in the streets.

As soon as the spaceships land and as soon as he's through the door, the Doctor looks down on him in disapproval and disdain and the ruby _burns_ in Infinite's chest. _How dare he-_

"No matter," the Doctor says, already turning back to his monitors, a careless wave of his hand making it clear how little he bothers. How he'll ever rule an empire of this size with that little care baffles Infinite. "The Death Egg has served its purpose. We'll get another chance." _We'll get another chance._ As he talks he pulls up a few files, pictures and videos, (he really doesn't care) sounding infuriatingly gleeful as he proclaims, "Now come and have a look at these!"

Infinite's rage simmers down to the ever-present thrum of the ruby's power in his veins, and he sneers but steps closer, glancing up. Intrigued against his will as his eyes land upon a video of Mobian fighting his way through a horde of robots, each of his deadly strikes taking down several foes at once. Graceful. Faster-

"Can you recreate him?"

"Of course." Infinite lets a wicked smile play on his muzzle, ( _stupid human_ ) holding the power to tear the resistance apart in his hands. In his chest, in his blood. He is-

(he's not weak)

(he'll _never be_ )

( _NEVER_ )

-Infinite.

* * *

 **A bit later…**

The surprise victory party evolved from a couple hundred people excitedly cheering in the hangar, to those same people putting on music and gravitating towards the canteen where somebody was pouring out water in plastic mugs in the same manner as a waiter pours champagne. Then the people got rid of their weapons and brought in their dance moves, which was about _time_ , finally, and now the room has even acquired some fairy lights.

People have been flocking to Sonic and Amy and Knuckles the whole time, some of them thanking them, others just patting their shoulders or giving them awestruck grins. Knuckles looks sheepish as hell at all this, but Amy handles it just as she's handled the rest of the war so far: like a champion. Sonic doesn't really know how he himself feels about it all. It's different from his fans back before, back on Mobius, because these people are fighting the war _with them_.

They're taking the world back _together_. All of them. Sure, they look up to Sonic and Amy, and Knuckles is their actual Commander, but without the rest of the resistance then… like, Sonic would've loved to go solo. But he's starting to see that he wouldn't have made it alone. They need the people as much as the people need them; they'd never have pulled off the stunt at Chemical Plant without some help. And it's nice to see the smiles on their faces, as they greet him and Tails. Tails looks flustered at the attention and Sonic is quick to tease him: "So _this_ is why you always abandon me with my fans? Can't handle the fame?"

Tails raises an eyebrow. "Like you haven't run away a bunch of times."

"That's different."

"Yeah, right."

Then Sonic spots Gadget, looking stressed and alone, standing completely by himself by a wall, and c'mon. Tails can fare on his own, it's Gadget who looks like he's in serious need of a buddy. Sonic ruffles Tails' bangs as he leaves, which Tails actually ignores in favour of looking like a dignified young engineer, and then Sonic sidles up to Gadget. He smiles and says, "How's it going, pal?"

Gadget takes in a great gulp of air and says, wretchedly, "I can't do this anymore."

Oh, uh. "The party? There's a bunch of empty storage rooms just around-"

"No, no, it's about… The war. Not being-" Gadget cuts off and looks at him. Sonic starts to feel a bit out of his depth here at the look on his face as Gadget starts spilling his heart out to him. "Do you think I – could take some medic training? I can't – _I know_ first aid won't help that much when someone's dying but it's better than nothing. And I… I can't just do nothing. Not again." The way Gadget says _not again_ , like it's a plea to the universe, feels like a slap to the face and makes Sonic put a hand on Gadget's shoulder and smile his quietest smile. Sounds like Gadget's seen some shit since Sonic last talked to him. While the guy definitely is older than Sonic, he still hasn't gotten any of that Hero-Of-Mobius experience, and yeah.

Yeah. Sonic really gets the 'wanna help' part.

"Medic training? Sounds like a brilliant idea, Gadget." It does.

"I hope so." Gadget sighs, a distinguishable sound even through the music. "In hindsight, GUN didn't teach me anything useful for the year I worked there. And my co-workers are all gone, so it's… I guess my job's gone too." A pause. Sonic takes a moment to wonder how the heck they all even ended up here, like this. In general, not the party specifically. Gadget says tiredly, "I just want to be able to help, in emergencies."

Sonic pats his shoulder a little in agreement. "Shouldn't be too hard to get someone to teach ya." Right. "And hey – thanks for telling me, confiding in me, you know."

Gadget gives him a _look_. " _I_ should be thanking _you_." He sighs again. "Thanks for listening."

"Anytime, buddy." Sonic goes for a reassuring smile, and then he decides that Gadget looks sufficiently (not cheered up, but like…) calmed down for Sonic to leave. His people skills might be… getting rusty? Or it was just the whole conversation that set him on edge, or maybe the crowds and music thing is actually getting to him. Which is ridiculous. Yet Sonic catches himself thinking that it'd be nice to slip away to the infirmary (the infirmary!) to visit Shadow. And Silver, too, he supposes.

' _I can't do this anymore.'_

Sonic glances back at Gadget, who's now talking with a yellow bird, and looking mostly alright. But what does Sonic know? He looks out at the rest of the room, clusters of people and scattered dancers, and spots Shadow. _Shadow_. It's definitely him, black hedgehog with bandage around his head, but Sonic still stares in disbelief for five whole seconds. And then he obviously darts right over to him to say hi, because there are no discussion that can make Sonic quit a party.

"Hey Shadow," Sonic says, skidding up beside him. "When did you get here?"

"Oh, about forty-five seconds ago," Shadow says dryly. They smile at each other all: _oh_ _yeah, they let you out of medical! Whee!_

Then Sonic remembers their earlier talk and all the complicated reasons for having it. He can't just outright _ask_ about it, that'd be weird, especially with all the party-ness around them, so instead he says, "How're you feeling?"

Shadow takes a moment before he answers. "Better." He considers. "Different. Even though… nevermind." And except for the bandage, he really _does_ look perfectly healthy. Then again, Shadow usually doesn't look anything but _perfect_ , hah. Haha. It's been years since Sonic last felt this much like the teenager he is. On an entirely unrelated note, if Sonic starts blushing right here and now then he might actually have to go die in one of those empty storage rooms he recommended to Gadget.

"You _look_ good," Sonic says with a smile. Then he gets nervous and quickly adds, "I mean, at least. Hey, do you dance? This song's pretty catchy."

Which is the exact moment that said catchy pop-song _ends_ and a slow, slow remix of what sounds like a new Spagonian tune begins. That's just awful, by which Sonic means that his heart skips a beat and then he wants to hit himself with his shoe because he's supposed to be _suave_. Literally nothing is what it was before the war, is it so? Is Sonic really gonna go down like this? _Flustered_ by a _possibility_? Heck no!

"Not quite my style," Sonic remarks, and offers a hand to Shadow. _Steady, idiot_. "But may I have this dance?"

"Alright." And just like that Shadow takes his hand, and puts another one on Sonic's shoulder. Sonic puts his other hand at Shadow's waist and thinks, _oh boy, this is happening_. They're not the only ones deciding to couple up and dance, either – but Sonic still swears that a few people are sneaking glances at him. Good thing he can dance, then. It's not like it's hard, anyway – you just take one step forward and two steps back...

Got a couple hundred people staring at his back, but it's cool, Shadow's dancing with him. Just Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog, waltzing with each other aboard Space Colony ARK. Shadow has this half-smile on his face that Sonic can't get enough of, like _why_ doesn't Shadow smile more, he could get entire cities to surrender with that smile. They're also holding hands, which is just an added bonus, their fingers intertwined and oh shit-

Sonic can pinpoint the exact second that Shadow realises something is up. First off: his face. Second: how he kinda twists their hands and then squeezes to come to the conclusion that _what, where's the rest of Sonic's fingers, what._

"Sonic," Shadow asks, very calmly, and looks him straight in the eyes. "What happened to your hand?"

Sonic makes them do another few dance steps while tries to recollect his chill. "Well! If you're sure you wanna know-"

"I do."

"…So it happened a while ago, you know, on the Death Egg," Sonic begins reluctantly. "Eggman didn't care what happened down in the cells. At first. Who gives a shit about prisoners, now that's a good question. So Infinite thinks it's fun to hang around there, mess with me." Sonic focuses on Shadow, on the present. Says, blasé, "Infinite did it." _There you have it_. "But it's just my fingers, so whatever. It's not a big deal!"

Shadow doesn't look pitying, which – Sonic didn't expect it either, man would that expression look wrong on Shadow's face. They're still holding hands, still moving together, and Sonic grips Shadow's hand a little tighter. _Look at me. I'm just fine_. Those fingers were just flesh and bones and really, he doesn't _need_ them. He's not mourning them, what the hell. He's pissed off, and taking down Infinite might be in everyone's interests, but Sonic's scars are his own damn business. He says as much to Shadow.

"Yes," Shadow replies. Then, "I'm sorry."

"Don't you start with any of that too," Sonic grumbles. "Why are we still talking about this? We're at a _party_ , for Chaos' sake…" An extraordinarily stressful party, but it's nothing that can't be fixed. And so what if he doesn't wanna talk about that time he got tortured? Several times, but what does it matter? None of it makes a good story. And Sonic – he doesn't want to talk about it. It's really not the biggest goddamn concern in this whole war whether Sonic's lost a few fingers or not. Yeah. Sonic keeps his firm hold on Shadow's hand and Shadow presses back, and it's all normal except for how Shadow then smiles at him and how he finds himself smiling back. Like they're daring each other with their eyes. It's crazy how nervously _thrilled_ Sonic feels at the thought of just mushing their faces together right in front of half the resistance, his friends, the stars, and Mobius. They don't. But they dance together till the song ends.

* * *

 **After…**

The Great Room feels so peaceful when it's empty. Tails was planning to just go straight to bed and crash, but he couldn't resist just checking in on his way there. It's not that he's paranoid, he just likes checking over his systems from time to time. Sometimes he gets the best ideas when he's so tired he has to blearily squint at the screens.

Not tonight.

Updates and messages from Mobius scroll over his screen, seven different contacts trying to get to him. News broadcasts, too. Before the censoring kicks in. At least the Adabati are still reporting to the fullest, and they won't go down for another few weeks at least. Ha-Ha. Oh _Chaos_. Tails just reads and reads, too numb and tired to really think about responding, or like, _reacting_. Then slowly he shakes it off, rubs at his eyes, and opens up his contacts list. Time to heave the rest of command outta their beds!

Sonic shows up first, bringing Shadow with him. Then Rouge, and Tails is pretty sure he called neither of them but you know, the more the merrier. Knuckles next, then Amy, and Espio, Tekno, Ray and the rest of the gang, one after the other. Knuckles takes a seat and then so does everyone else, and Tails shares a look with Sonic. Dead stare, _what is it now._ Tails shrugs and opens up a map on his Miles Electric, and kicks at the console down by his feet to get the projector to start. The map appears on the wall, every country marked with its own colour (for now) and Tails clears his throat.

Everyone fixes their stares on the map instead of on the coffee machine.

"Mazuri is," Tails begins, "since yesterday, under Eggman's control."

It takes a second for that to sink in. When it does, Knuckles is first up, but Tails doesn't let him speak before gravely announcing,

"And two hours ago, Shamar fell to the Eggman Empire. Just over a week earlier, so did Holoska and Soleanna. Before that it was Chun-nan, the archipelago, Apotos-"

"Shamar's fallen?" Sonic interrupts, incredulous.

"Infinite's been trying to take it over for weeks," mutters Knuckles. "Figures the bastard would make it _today_."

"But-" Ray points at the map, where Tails has been using the Miles Electric to paint over all the occupied territories. Red, red, red, all around the globe. "But now – what's even left?"

 _What's left if Shamar's fallen?_

"Adabat," Tails says into the silence. "That's the only country left."


	17. Reckless

**A/N:** _hhhhhhhggggg fucking finally I have summer break, hopefully this means next chapter is gonna be up faster than this one. this is less edited than usual bc I have a cold, anyway_ **WARNING for violence! GUN are kinda brutal in a flashback.** _And warning for other violence and swearing, too, I suppose._

 **MadameMirage77:** _Infinite's up to no good as usual. Anyway, thanks for your review! And cool fic idea, hope you'll work the chaos energy issues out :D_

 **Recap:** _the ARK is safe thanks to the resistance, and last chapter they had a party to celebrate this! Unfortunately they then got news of the situation back on the planet – only one country free of the Eggman Empire is left: Adabat._

* * *

He breathes in a mouthful of dark water. He drowns – and the second after he lurches up in bed, chest heaving with his terrified breaths. Anger flares up, bright enough to light the room and he clenches his fists, grits his teeth so hard it hurts – and Tails is sleeping on the cot on the other end of the room, just a few feet away, and Sonic doesn't want to wake him up because when the heck ever does he even sleep? Little guy needs all the shuteye he can get.

He _won't_ let Infinite take anything more from them.

Since he's already awake and restless Sonic might as well get out of bed. He puts on his sneakers and gloves and sneaks out of the room, taking to the corridors. There's always people up and about now – ever since they got the news from Mobius. Ever since they didn't die, ever since they had that party. They've been putting things into boxes, moving hit around, weapons onto the shuttles… a week. Amy sent out word to Mobius to stop sending them so many rations to ARK-

Everyone knows they're leaving. The Death Egg is gone (hah!) but Eggman still knows exactly where the resistance is, and Adabat needs help. It just makes sense to take almost the whole army with them when they leave for Adabat! What have they even been doing here in space, other than hiding? Better for them all to head back to the surface… because if they lose Adabat, then all they have left is ARK and a dozen hidden bases in Soleanna, Shamar and Spagonia. They're not gonna lose any more.

It's starting now. The bad part, the surface fight, the 'war to take back the planet'.

They've already fought and fought, been protecting themselves, running, _hiding_ , trying not to die. Trying to lay low honestly, though that didn't really work, but _now_. Now they've gotta start taking things back, push harder, they have to start winning back.

That's not so hard.

Oh Chaos, it's going to be hard.

Dread mixes with anticipation in Sonic's gut. He paces through the corridors, wishing they were wide open plains instead of cramped and winding. He's just waiting. He's been waiting ever since he first fell, waiting for the final battle. And Sonic has always hated waiting.

You know what Sonic would like? A race. Just a plain ol' run through the forest, preferably against Shadow, but of course it's impossible here, which never fails to annoy him…

Sonic turns around and starts heading for Shadow's room anyway.

* * *

Rouge wakes Shadow up just to tell him Sonic's there to see him, and Shadow can't find it in himself to be annoyed. Sleeping is a waste of time, anyway. He doesn't bother asking Sonic if he wants to come in – Team Dark's rooms are small, standard and boring, and there's no food or drink he can offer Sonic.

"Sorry I woke you up," Sonic tells him as they slip outside into the corridor.

"Doesn't matter." Shadow looks at Sonic. "Was there anything you wanted?"

"Not really." Sonic shrugs twitchily. "You wanna do something?"

"Do what?" Shadow asks – and then he has to pause because inspiration strikes him.

"Well we could…," Sonic slowly begins, and Shadow interrupts him.

"Actually, can I show you something?"

Sonic grins and says, "Go ahead."

It's really nothing special, unless you've lived here. Unless you knew Maria. But Shadow thinks Sonic would… maybe appreciate it, anyway. Shadow would like it if he did.

He leads Sonic through a few corridors, down to a rarely used observation deck in the lower floors of the ARK. This used to be one of Maria's favourite planet-watching spots, somewhere to hide out when you wanted to avoid all the adults. She used to come here, sit and just watch the planet while daydreaming about finally going back to Mobius—

Shadow tells Sonic as much.

"Oh," Sonic says, carefully sitting down in front of one of the massive windows. He grins up at Shadow. "I can see why. I mean, this view is awesome!"

Shadow wrestles his expression into a smaller smile and sits down next to Sonic.

There's silence for a minute, in which Shadow thinks a bit too much about taking Sonic's hand, feeling laughably self-conscious, as if Maria's ghost is hanging behind him, ready to gossip about boys with him. Shadow doesn't take Sonic's hand. And then Sonic lets out a sigh, bows his head, and says, "I know I'm just distracting myself from the war but… thanks, buddy. This is nice."

"You're welcome," Shadow says. "…and thank you. For – what you said in medical."

"You mean when I yelled at you?"

"You had a reason," Shadow objects.

"Still shouldn't have yelled," Sonic says. "Sorry. Or not sorry, I mean, what if you had just stayed there and moped?"

"I'm sure you would've talked sense into me eventually," Shadow says fondly, then hastens to add, "Or Rouge. Rouge wouldn't take well to me giving up."

"She sure wouldn't!"

They sit there and smile at each other uselessly for a bit. There's nowhere they need to be, in this moment, and Shadow can just sit and breathe, wonder if Sonic loves the stars as much as Maria did. Thinking about Maria is just a thing he does whenever he's reminded of her, nowadays. Shadow is _done_ with the past. That wound doesn't bleed anymore – but then that _chip_ was revealed, and it's been hurting again. The memories of Gerald, now tainted by lies. And now! They're at war with his grandson, and it just never stops, does it?

Sonic stares blankly into the night sky, no doubt haunted by his own demons, and Shadow remembers.

Maria comforting Shadow, when nobody else cared to see that he was upset. Shadow comforting Maria, when she lay weak and shivering in the infirmary.

Sonic never let him fall.

The war may tear them apart, make them fight in different teams, in different places. But for now…

Shadow scoots a little bit closer to Sonic, and Sonic's head flops down on Shadow's shoulder. "I hate waiting…" Sonic grumbles. "If I could go down… and kick their asses right _now_ …"

One free country left, and the clock is ticking.

Shadow says nothing, and together they watch the stars.

* * *

 **Next day…**

They're making a lot of progress in packing up all their rations, clothes and other things, and they just got done making the lists of who's going to be staying behind on ARK. Mostly families, children and elders, but Amy made sure to leave some tech-savvy people here too, because they'll be needing the ARK to uphold communications for them anyway, it's still their HQ even if they're taking the army back to Mobius. Maybe the Stayers can gently explore the ARK a little, get rid of that Artificial Chaos infestation – or maybe there's still some useful things laying around here, you never know!

-but for now, everyone is just gathering stuff and moving boxes. The mechanics are hard at work patching up and upgrading their spaceships, which Tails is primarily overseeing, while Amy… makes lists. In a world currently _all_ about organising, Amy is the chief organiser arranging all others. She is the Queen of Spreadsheets, with Espio as her right-hand man and Whisper as her head of knights. Knuckles mostly does actual heavy-lifting with actual boxes for now, and orders the spies they have on the surface around. Espio takes calls. Whisper quietly but efficiently makes sure all boxes end up where they should.

The stress feels more like an extra kick at this point, so Amy makes sure to squeeze every drop of energy out of it. But despite the work coming up to her eyeballs, Amy can't help but notice that Whisper _still_ keeps that red crystal in her cloak. At breaks Amy sometimes sees her sit down in a corner and turn it over in her hands, and Amy swears she can feel this – tingle, when she's too close to that glowing red shard.

And after studying footage, after thinking about the files Shadow stole and brought back in an USB that Tails then decrypted for them… the files they wrote down, about the Phantom Ruby…

Amy is pretty sure she knows what it is.

So if Whisper still has it… maybe Whisper can use it. Maybe Whisper is a traitor, maybe Whisper is connected to Infinite. Maybe Whisper has fought Infinite. Maybe Whisper has fought Infinite and won.

And Amy doesn't bring it up, because she's too busy already, and really… even if it _is_ a Phantom Ruby, Whisper looks like she knows what she's doing. It's all fine…

(Amy really misses Blaze, sometimes. She could've talked with Blaze about this…)

But you know! Whisper looks like she could use it, probably, and if she's a friend of Wisps then she's a friend of Amy's. Having a ruby shard of their own could be a real boon in the fight to come, especially since not many of them are familiar with Adabat. It'll be good to have some sort of magical stone there.

* * *

 **A day later…**

No one spares him a glance in the infirmary. Gadget feels so dumb and self-centred as he goes up to the desk and starts explaining that _no, I'm not hurt, I just kinda want to intern here_? _I know we're in the middle of moving out ma'am, but isn't there anybody who could teach me the basics_? His stomach has tied itself into knots by the time a ferret in a lab coat shows up, introduces herself as Nurse April, and asks, "So why are you here?"

"Because I want to help." _I want to do something good. I want a break from the bloodshed. I want to be able to make a difference out there instead of just watching as my friends die-_

"Hmm?" April says. She scrutinises him.

Gadget's fingers suddenly itch to adjust his glasses or straighten up his none-existent clothes.

"Fine," Nurse April decides. "First you'll need to change clothes."

"Yes," Gadget agrees, because nothing sounds better than pulling on a lab coat and forgetting everything but education for a bit. It was so much less exhausting to just be naïve.

"Good." April starts to briskly walk further into the infirmary and Gadget quickly follows. "We're, excuse me, busy _as fuck_ , but we're also running out of medics, so I'll teach you the basics. Pay attention, if you waste my time I'm throwing you out."

"Yes, ma'am," Gadget quickly says. And the feeling he feels the strongest is relief.

Adabat is a country made entirely of ocean and thousands of scattered tropical islands. It's humid, it's hot, and Gadget tries not to imagine how blood would look like, seeping into the sand.

The thought that maybe _he_ 'll be the one to pull Sonic out of danger, or assist Amy Rose, or maybe even fight next to Tails, is now quite terrifying. They're all just people, it's become blatantly clear, and if Rex can die like that then so can Sonic. So can _Gadget_. So can anybody. Medic training won't solve everything, but at least it'll give Gadget some peace of mind…

* * *

 **Three months ago…**

At first it just seemed to be a mugging, but when people started screaming Chloe shared a look with Amethyst, and they started running. John Amethyst may be an asshole, but at least he works for GUN too, same as Chloe, so she'll have had back-up in whatever street brawl that they're gonna stumble into. Unfortunately it turned out to be mercenaries. Jackal Squad, some other guys, and a few GUN troops, _what the hell_ Chloe has time to think, and then Amethyst, the absolute bastard, starts shooting at Jackal Squad.

"Cease fire!" Chloe screams at him, and there's screaming. A jackal collapses against a wall while another buries a knife in Maddie Opal's stomach, (Humans and Mobians beating each other to death in an alley will make horrible, horrible headlines-) and when Chloe finally gets Amethyst to let go off his fucking gun, _maniac_ -

Too late.

Everybody reels from it.

So what happened was that something minor triggered a brawl, which then lead to this bloodbath, and now Chloe has a _dead_ co-worker and all of Jackal Squad _murdered_ right in front of her, and she wants to strangle Amethyst with her bare hands-

-but not everybody dead after all, because out into the alley stumbles another jackal. The leader. He screams at them and Chloe gets it, but Amethyst and Iolite are taking offense, taking offense at being blamed for the murders they just _committed_ , and Chloe has fucking had it. "That's ENOUGH, boys," she snaps.

"You're not in charge," Amethyst snaps back.

"Soon you won't be either," Chloe spits. "Who's gonna clean this up, who's gonna-"

The jackal howls with – grief, rage, Chloe doesn't know. Amethyst mutters something which Chloe desperately wants to be something else than what she thinks it was, but then the jackal pounces on him and Chloe realises _no_. She manages to wrench them apart, Sarah helping, just as Amethyst spits that the jackal is weak, and in response he claws and screams. He smells like alcohol, and so does Sarah and Iolite, and Chloe cannot fucking believe this.

"Look what you've done!" she yells.

The beginning of the end.

* * *

 **At a completely different time…**

Silver was no longer stuck in medical, or so Sonic had heard. Which was great! Though it took Sonic twenty minutes to find him – Silver had gone down to one of the lower levels of ARK, and had managed to find the temporary Chao garden, which apparently doubles as an excellent hiding spot. The garden used to be a greenhouse or whatever, as the guy managing the place tells Sonic, but as soon as the refugees started really living aboard ARK they all wanted a Chao garden made for the few Chao they brought with them.

There's blue-yellow Chao that have never reincarnated sharing fruits with a black-red Chao with a flaming head and long horns, while a Chaos Chao sits and soaks in a bucket next to them. Silver sits crouched next to a dark green Chao with a flowering head, helping it peel a banana. It's adorable. If you need something to be adorable, just add Chao.

"Hiya, buddy," Sonic says as he drops to sit next to them. The Chao promptly offers him the banana peel.

Silver waves at him, then gestures at his mouth. Still not allowed to talk? Sheesh, Sonic would be going crazy if it was him.

"You coming with us to Adabat?" Silver nods. "That's great! I mean, I'm glad you're coming." Silver is pretty amazing in a fight, which isn't the only reason why Sonic wants him to tag along but is definitely part of it. Silver is usually optimistic about everything, which in turns makes other people hopeful! It's great how things like that work…

(and they could _definitely_ use a bit of hope right now)

"Sorry about your jaw," Sonic says. Silver shrugs. "Made any friends in the Chao garden?"

Silver pulls the green Chao into his lap and pets its head. Sonic can't help but smile; a slice of Mobius, safe and preserved up here.

"Are there Chao in the future?" he then asks.

Silver mournfully shakes his head.

"Oh, yikes." Sonic really doesn't want to contemplate what kind of shit made Chao go extinct, so he tries to think of something else to say… "Do you think Shadow would like this place? Like, if I asked him to come with me here and uh…"

Silver is enthusiastically nodding at him, thumbs up.

"Right, right," Sonic agrees with a nervous chuckle. Like, they danced and talked and you know, but – friends invite friends to places, too, yes. Just pals being buddies and hanging out in the Chao garden together. With, perhaps, a tiny bit of light romantic subtext. Perhaps.

* * *

 **A week later…**

Sonic and Shadow sit next to each other on the shuttle heading toward Adabat, and Shadow keeps ignoring Rouge's waggling eyebrows that she gives him every time he smiles at something Sonic says, or sways a bit too close. His composure is suffering quite badly, but thankfully Sonic hasn't noticed. Though Rouge really is not helping in any way.

(being mortal won't be… the worst, if Sonic's there)

Gadget sits with Nurse April on another shuttle, cradling his trusty red Wispon in hand. Nurse April has the lightning whip Wispon, but she's not even supposed to see combat – she's one of the rare medics they have that actually have a degree. And despite Nurse April's eye-rolling, Gadget can't stop himself from calling her _ma'am_ , or _Nurse_ April, because she just commands authority, and she doesn't have Sonic's goofiness or Amy's bubbly cheer to counter it.

(and perhaps Gadget just desperately wants somebody to tell him what to do, but nobody needs to know that)

Silver is aboard the same shuttle as Espio, and together they're sorting through intel from the scouts down in Adabat – like cheerful news such as: Infinite is _already there_ goddammit. Espio then sends the info to whoever needs it (everybody! It's _Infinite_!), while Silver sorts and reads and gives info to Espio for him to pass on. It's quite a brilliant idea Espio had, to use simple gestures to convey what Silver wants said! It mostly just works for ' _bad'_ , ' _good'_ , ' _need more'_ and such, but it's really good. And it's kinda their own little thing, which delights Silver in unfathomable ways.

(but by Gaia, Silver _cannot wait_ until his jaw is finally fucking healed, he has so _many_ things to tell Espio-)

Tails can see the capital city is under attack, but it seems to be a recent development and at least the weather is good, or so his screens says, and all he should worry about this very second is to land smoothly. Notices keep popping up on the windshield, seems Infinite is here (oh no) but strangely Eggman himself seems to be absent. If Tails squints past all the million and one things needing his attention and looks through the window, then the world is just a gentle blue slope, with a massive green-brown lump of an island right in front of them.

(and so it starts again)

Sonic sits in a shuttle with Shadow and Tails and Knuckles and Rouge, bouncing his leg impatiently. It's just minutes left but he's been waiting for weeks. There's nightmares, there's anger, there's trepidation and the endless gnawing _waiting_ , waiting-he's got it all. It itches and burns beneath his skin. The worst part is almost the wait. But then there's these _moments_ , like making an experimental new flavour for rations with Tails, or going grinding on the railings beneath ARK with Shadow, or babysitting somebody's kids and…

He wants more of that.

He's exhilarated. There's so much he wants to do, needs to do, and there's a battle right down there on the island, Infinite's there-

Infinite's there and Sonic wants to smash his goddamn face in.

-and next to Sonic right _now_ sits Shadow, unflappably calm as ever. A soothing presence, _hah_ , but it's true. If they had the time and it was some other day then Sonic would tease him, see if he can get him to tease Sonic right back (oh yes let's _flirt_ ), but today – hey, it's nice that _somebody's_ got their cool with them.

Cuz that's the deal with Sonic: he hasn't been calm since before this war started. At least he isn't afraid now, not shaken and disrupted – he's _pissed_. He's coming to tear Eggy's kingdom to _pieces_.

"Infinite's been spotted," Tails announces to the shuttle. "He's on the beach right outside the capital city-"

"Dibs," Sonic says.

"Oooh, there he goes!" Rouge says. "The Sonic we all know and love."

Knuckles, Mighty and Ray laughs, Tekno claps, and Shadow shakes his head in exasperation. "Don't be reckless," he tells Sonic, voice uncharacteristically soft. It makes Sonic uneasy in a very unsettling way, because it's not often he has to disappoint people he cares about.

"Eh, no more than I normally am." Sonic grins at him.

Shadow looks at him in a way that seems to suggest, _I saw you fucking swan-dive after me from the ARK to save my worthless butt, mister._

"I'll be fine," Sonic adds.

"Sure," Shadow says. "Don't… don't get yourself hurt."

Sonic puts on a smile.

And they make landfall.

* * *

Amy gets a call from Tails just as her shuttle's landing, and when she picks up Tails just says, _"Sonic's going to confront Infinite."_

"Ouch," Amy says. Whisper makes eye-contact with her from another bench, and their shuttle lurches as it hits the ground. Here we go!

" _Could you please keep an eye on him? I'm heading to defend the city with Knuckles and the others, but Sonic should be running for the beach…"_

"Of course," Amy answers. And, hoping she's not misreading it, says, "Count me and Whisper in."

" _Thanks Amy!"_ he cuts the call. A fang catches the light as Whisper then smiles toothily at Amy, who raises her Piko-Piko hammer in response. Yeah, here they go…

* * *

 **Seconds later…**

Shadow squeezes his hand, Tails wishes him luck and Knuckles slaps his back. Rouge gives him a mock salute, and Sonic tells them all he'll _catch you guys later_ … And as soon as the ship's on the ground Sonic leaps out of the door, beginning to run along the beach. Right, he's got this, _this is it_ , just distract Infinite so the resistance can defend the city unbothered. He's done this before and he'll do it again.

He knows Infinite's weak spot, and no amount of boasting, hissing and threatening is gonna save Infinite now.

-even if the ocean is right next to them. Even if Sonic can hear the waves and smell the salt in the air.

He's got this.

Sonic runs, sand and dust trailing in his wake, endless blue to one side and towering jungle on the other. And far in front of him, floating next to two shored boats, Infinite floats above the beach.

Sonic runs up to him and brakes hard, sand spraying up in a long line after him. _Ready_ , Sonic thinks, _and go_ , starting to jog around Infinite, who spits, "The blue buffoon again, I see."

"Hello!" Sonic yells back. "The crazy tyrant, we meet again!"

"You truly _seek_ to die, you idiot," Infinite hisses. "There's _nobody_ here to save you or beg for your life!"

"And you've been waiting here for me! Just the two of us, so sweet of you." Sonic snarls and lunges forward, a test, and Infinite zips to the side. They stare each other down, moving around each other, who'll strike first-

Infinite lashes out, and Sonic leaps out of the way, curling into a ball and spin-dashing away. _Nice and easy, here we go_. Sonic bounces forward and runs at Infinite, who flies to the side, and then Sonic starts to really use his speed. He runs around Infinite in great arcs to avoid him, and smashes back into him faster than a bullet in the seconds where Infinite has to gather more energy or whatever the hell he does. Sonic doesn't care, as long as he gets to kick him.

He wants to taunt and mock as usual – but apparently he's still _afraid_ on some level because he can't make the words come.

It's all fun and games until you get traumatised.

Infinite crackles with that freaky red energy, and Sonic swears it's taking away the brunt of Sonic's hits.

In the distance he can see the fleet still touching down, closer to the capital, and while his friends fight the army Sonic – Sonic needs to somehow get Infinite's guard down. He can't even make _himself_ believe that he'd be able to finish Infinite off here, just distract him right-

But if there's a chance to really hurt him then Sonic is _gonna take it_.

(Tails and Knuckles and Amy and everybody are doing alright, Sonic hopes. Shadow and Rouge and Silver and the whole resistance – they have to be alright. And Sonic has to do this for them.)

"Hey, loser," Sonic yells, and then suddenly it's easy. He knows how to annoy his foes, alright. "You gonna hang there all day? Honestly, I expected you to _do_ something, but-"

Red lighting splits the air and Sonic ducks to the side, again, again, and then he sets his foot down into _water_. He freezes for a second, one damning second, and then he leaps back onto the beach. Above him, Infinite drawls, "Scared of water?"

Not good. "Depends on the temperature," Sonic replies, keeping Infinite between him and the ocean. _Careful, careful, hold on-_

"Then what do you say," Infinite screams, "TO THIS!"

The ocean surges forward, a wall of water crashing down over the beach, and Sonic runs.


	18. Beach party

**Reply to MadameMirage77:** _yeah maybe. I feel like Sonic would maybe give Infinite a chance at redemption_ after _all this, but_ right now _? When Infinite's out there destroying the world? Sonic hates him. And thanks for the review! You're so sweet. Happy that you're still reading this. And yeah GUN aren't the best at managing relationships with Mobians in the comics either… well, good luck with your project!_

 **A/N:** _aaaaand now they're fighting in Adabat. enjoy?_

* * *

They see the ocean rising from plenty far away, and that's when Amy and Whisper start to really sprint. It's just beach and beach ahead of them, endless golden dunes, and it'd be a picture perfect vacation spot if it wasn't for the war and the alarm bells starting to ring in Amy's head. Their boots sink annoyingly into the sand, and Amy can see a terrifyingly giant wave crash into the beach, and it's in no way natural (oh, Infinite-) and _Sonic can't swim_.

Amy _hates_ the feeling of helplessness, her friends are fighting for their lives on either side of her, and what if she _doesn't reach Sonic in time_?

They already thought Infinite had killed him, once.

She's like, had a preview of that grief, and she really does _not_ want the real deal.

She can't _believe_ they all let Sonic go at him alone, Amy thinks furiously, when they're almost there, pulling out a hammer mid-run and throwing it at Infinite. It hits the bastard in his foot, and he whirls around like an enraged snake and yells something, red light swelling behind him like a cloud, but Amy happily leaves the task of reacting to that to Whisper because there's _somebody_ lying in the surf, in the water. The wave Infinite pulled together is falling apart, water splashing down into the sea again and dragging over Sonic, who's lying face-down in the sand and please be okay, please-

Amy's panting by the time she reaches him, skidding to her knees in the sand. She grabs Sonic, like that's gonna help _c'mon_ _just think girl_ , but then he starts stirring by himself, he's moving, he's _alive_.

He rolls over on his side and pukes.

"Sonic." Amy speaks, puts a hand on his shoulder, moves it to his back, careful, and then says again, " _Sonic_." Because she doesn't have the time to cuss him out or whack him in the head, and actually all she really wants to do is cover him with a blanket and throw another hammer at Infinite, and you know, they're in a war zone, better get moving. Besides, Sonic hates fussing, even when he's throwing up salt water.

Maybe especially then.

"I _hate_ water," Sonic gasps, his first words, looking nothing like the hero pre-teen Amy used to fawn over, and every day - every day Amy sees some kind of change like this. Tails looking just a bit more tired, more mature than he should ever be at that age, and every day Amy can't stop herself from thinking about a just a little bit younger Tails, who had never seen his hero die. (Even if it didn't stick, wasn't real, even if Tails never really truly believed in that). And now, Sonic. When things are good, all that changes about Sonic is just - for the better, faster, more awesome than yesterday. But _now_ they're in a war, a blasted _war_ , wasn't Eggman's normal shit enough - and Sonic… he really does get hurt. He really does get down. And Amy is always too busy nowadays to have a proper chat about any of this! With anyone!

"I know," Amy tells Sonic, as he finishes hacking up another mouthful of saltwater. "C'mon,"

Amy then says, trying for soothing, moving to pull Sonic to his feet, but he stumbles up on his own instead, staggers away from the water.

Two weeks of doing nothing but packing wasn't long a enough break, they need to… They just need to survive this war. Obviously! Survive and then they'll see-

Infinite screams.

Amy and Sonic whirl around.

Whisper's been keeping Infinite busy for the minute Amy went to help Sonic, but since she's a sniper things are starting to go downhill for her. Infinite's on the ground now, wielding some kind of sword and forcing Whisper to retreat and retreat, and Sonic starts running toward them before Amy even has the time to ask, 'You okay?', because if he isn't Amy can handle this, she's pissed and has a big, big hammer, it'll be no problem (right, right).

But Sonic can still fight, it seems!

Or Sonic just doesn't give up, that's for sure!

Amy snarls and follows, summoning a new hammer to her hand, running after him because if Sonic's gonna fight, then good luck trying to change his mind, that stupid brave idiot, the face of the resistance even though he wasn't even there when it began. The reckless charming hero they've all been aspiring to follow since their first time seeing him, _of course_ they'll all fight in his name when their world's in danger even if it's Knuckles calling the shots and Amy making the plans.

* * *

 **Somewhere nearby...**

They're crouching in a thicket of unidentifiable tropical plants and watching the beach as the rest of the shuttles and spaceships touch down, the capital in walking distance. Shadow can hear the cacophony from the city and he knows Rouge can as well, if she pretends otherwise she'd be lying. It's the sound of battle (more familiar to him than Maria's voice). The sound the Egg Army makes when it moves, clicks and beeps and whirrs. Hundreds of metal feet trampling and destroying. Citizens panicking is also a rather distinctive noise among the rest, cars honking and chatter rumbling.

Somehow, when all the orders had been dealt and all the odds had been stacked up, it had been decided that Rouge and Shadow were spies, and as such, they should travel ahead to Chun-nan. The Chun-nese people were apparently so good at sabotaging and rebelling, that Eggman himself had went back there to crush the rebels. Three cheers to Chun-nan and Chun-nese stubbornness.

-meanwhile, of course, the resistance would be fighting for not only theirs but also the Adabati lives here.

Shadow has never wanted to break an order more while simultaneously not planning to do it.

Chun-nan needs just a little push, and then the people could - possibly - reconquer the country by themselves. That would mean that if the resistance makes it here (they _must_ ) then there's two countries free. It'll be an uphill battle to keep it that way, obviously, but now it's becoming apparent that that part's been even worse for the Doctor, if he's barely keeping Chun-nan under control. (Still, the whole rest of the world is under his thumb… But.)

But their resistance isn't as alone as Dr Eggman would have them believe.

The people of Mobius have faced alien invasions, the crust of the planet itself splitting apart, and several crazy attacks by Dr Eggman and his divine wrath monster of the week. The Chun-nese apparently aren't going to take this latest atrocity lying down, no.

Shadow approves.

Rouge says, somberly, "We're supposed to head for Chun-nan." Like he doesn't already know this.

They are both stalling.

Sonic and Knuckles can fend for themselves. They both know this, but that's not making it any easier; all their, well, friends, are fighting out there. The few idiots that aren't Team Dark that they still care about dangerously much are in a battle, and they aren't supposed to help them. They aren't even supposed to be here.

The horribly vulnerable squishy feeling Shadow gets around Sonic nowadays feels like it's practically being stabbed inside his chest.

"What about Omega?" Shadow asks. His voice is nearly drowned out by a thunderous boom in the distance.

Rouge hears him anyway, and says gratefully, "Oh, you're right, I'll go fetch him, he's on standby by the ships…"

A few more minutes' excuse to wait.

Rouge slips away and Shadow bows his head, rests his forehead against his knees. Oh.

Oh, it is so funny. Shadow didn't even think he'd _feel_ anything but anger ever again, back in whatever year they blew up half the moon and Shadow wanted to end it all, for everyone, forever. And _now_ he's been sitting in a fucking bush for fifteen minutes because he can't bear the thought of leaving somebody to fight for himself, turn his back, because he's so concerned.

When Rouge returns he'll…

Then Shadow will…

Rouge arrives. "Hey," she says, sounding annoyed, and then she says, "Shadow, get up - are you alright?"

"Yes," Shadow says, and pulls himself to his feet.

"He is in no physical distress," Omega reports, staring at him with his optical sensors glowing like they do when he's scanning something or browsing for memes while stealing Rouge's wifi to do it.

"I'm not in distress," Shadow agrees. "Let's hunt down the Doctor."

Far away, another explosion sounds. Rouge cocks her head.

"This plan pleases me," Omega states in his usual electronic voice, still somehow managing to convey glee even though he has no inflection.

"Take Eggman down because he's in Chun-nan?" Rouge hums. "Where we're heading? Actually… that's basically our orders. And if we catch the Doctor…"

"Yes," Shadow says again. If he can't fight Infinite then at least he can fight whoever's holding Infinite's leash. His least favourite relative, and right now Shadow's including Black Doom in the comparison. Torturing Sonic is just unforgivable.

"It's not actually a completely terrible idea…" Rouge says slowly. "Alright."

It's a long way to Chun-nan, but Team Dark travels fast and silent.

* * *

 **Minutes later...**

The capital of Adabat is even more massive than Central City. Tails has, like Sonic, been all over the world, but somehow he's never been to central Adabat, so it's - it's quite a sight to see for the first time. It's as least as big as Central City, but it's so different. It _has_ all the towers and apartment complexes of Central City, but they're taller, there's more colours, red and orange and bright green, and the streets are far more crowded. Market stalls, greenery stubbornly clinging to life amidst the pavement and steel, restaurants and tables spilling onto the streets, citizens everywhere-

-and in the sky, swarms of buzz bombers weaving between the towers. Chopper class badniks swimming in the ocean by the harbours. The airports overrun by Egg walkers, Egg pawns trying to break through the outskirts of the city, and Tails is getting stray reports of Death Egg robot sentries on the move, too. Knuckles has to handle all that, coordinate his army on his own for now - Tails is handling the diplomacy.

By which he means he's actually making sure that the right person (not him) is handling it. Gotta work with what you have, right? And what they have is a lot of resistance people.

Really, the resistance people who've been here for a month already are far better equipped to deal with it than someone like Tails. Especially since many of those are locals. Which is just as well, because things quickly get too busy for Tails to stick around and wait for results.

The capital of Adabat is, as previously said, very large. Unfortunately large. Large enough that closer to the center, there's no robots and no fighting and only crowds of panicking people. Tails has had Fox Squad hanging after him ever since they left the beach, mostly ignoring them as he ran while typing on the Miles Electric - now he gets three of the foxes and tells them to get people to evacuate.

And they listen to him.

Even though they're all so obviously older than him, they listen, and Tails wonders whether he should feel proud or whether he should despair. Introspection is bad for your health, _kiddos younger than me_ , of which there are not many in the resistance.

After this brief second of depressing thought, Tails gets another three foxes on the case, because this city's big. The worst is honestly that Eggman has already been toppling cities far bigger than this. Tearing down entire countries. War isn't exactly common on Mobius, which is a thought Tails can almost comfort himself with: they weren't prepared before, but _now_ they sure will be.

And the resistance has, right now, one advantage: Eggman's army is spread out thin. The Egg Army's fighting rebels in Chun-nan and the resistance in Soleanna and the people of Shamar won't give up that easily, either, even though the country's already fallen.

They can fight off the Egg Army. They've got to.

It's the war to take back the planet, one bit at a time.

Over the comms, Knuckles tells people to head for the outskirts of the city. Relatively confident that somebody is actually handling the diplomacy and evacuation, because when can you ever be a 100 percent sure in this disaster zone, Tails and Fox Squad get up and head for the edge of the city.

* * *

 **Meanwhile...**

The jungle and the suburbs are trying their very best to occupy the exact same area, with the end result being trees crammed into every single nook and alley. At least the houses are all tinier out here, more natural, which Knuckles would really appreciate if it wasn't so crowded and full structurally unsound decisions. A bit less Egg pawns would be pretty sweet, too.

"Destroy the robots, what more do you want from me?" Knuckles had told the group of resistance soldiers he had brought with him. "Let's clean the city up."

The aftermath of that order is that now everyone is spread out, a fight here and brawl there, Wispon shots flying, and Knuckles himself is in an actual battle.

It's been far, far too long of just sitting and telling people what to do.

He climbs up on a low stone roof and then leaps down to tackle a group of Egg pawns, whooping as the whole group clatters down a bunch of stairs. Running after them he puts his fist through a buzz bomber, almost gets trampled by an Egg walker, then rips the leg from the walker.

Punching it in the head a couple of times makes smoke rise from the wreck, and Knuckles enthusiastically leaps onward to his next target.

It feels _great_ to do something real.

Knuckles would be grinning evilly, but the swarms of buzz bombers in the sky kind of puts a damper on things. Right. They've got their mission: defend the city.

Let's get to it.

"This is Knuckles speaking," he tells his comm, "Everyone available, get to the outskirts of the city. Fliers, take down those buzz bombers."

There's a chorus of acknowledgements, and Knuckles stops listening.

He tears through a dozen more pawns. For every robot he smashes there's a new one aiming it's blaster at him just a few steps away, but he's got enough damn frustration to fight off half the city. He barely notices when he gets hit - it's all just small cuts and meaningless bruises compared to how the planet is suffering.

He was supposed to protect the Master Emerald!

He wasn't supposed to make friends and get caught up in all this fucking drama. Was _not_ supposed to become the _commander_ of a whole fucking army, sitting around doing nothing but yelling orders and asking for 'status updates' and 'mission reports' while a madman destroys the planet. This is Knuckles' home, this is their one and only homeworld - Knuckles will fight till his last breath to free it, just like Sonic.

Knuckles just wishes that so much of his 'fighting' wasn't giving orders and making sure plans were carried out like they should.

But Sonic's first request upon being rescued was that he himself _wouldn't_ be in charge, he made a whole speech about how he shouldn't be the boss, and alright. Knuckles has his back, Knuckles can be the Commander if that's what's best. Knuckles can do the friendship thing, yeah yeah.

Knuckles can send Rouge and her team away to Chun-nan as spies with barely a goodbye to her, because that's what's best.

Knuckles can lead the resistance, if that's what's best.

Knuckles can really start to see, now, why Sonic didn't want this job.

He rips apart yet another Egg pawn then saves a fox from an Egg walker, looking up to see even more foxes running around, and then he spots Tails.

"Knuckles!" Tails exclaims, leaping down from a roof and running toward Knuckles.

"What's up?" Knuckles shouts, momentarily ignoring Tails to go confront another group of pawns, clustered on a porch beneath a large tree.

"We've started the evacuation," Tails tells him, whipping out a Wispon to quickly dispose of the last of the pawns. After one blast of Tails' no doubt highly modified and upgraded Wispon, the pawns explode into… money. Knuckles stares at the rings. "Infinite hasn't been spotted in the city yet, but since Sonic went after him…"

Yeah, Sonic.

"Guess that means Sonic's keeping him busy."

"Yeah," Tails agrees, and that's all the time they have to talk before things get busy.

In between battles, Knuckles imagines that the endless stream of Egg pawns is beginning to die out. No matter how shitty a situation may look, the Egg army isn't actually limitless rows of Egg pawns. Eggman doesn't have an infinite supply of materials for that.

If Knuckles slows down and surveys how _their_ side is faring, he can see that many resistance fighters have gotten injured too. There's some buildings that have collapsed, rubble and blood mixing below the jut of a cliff.

"Keep going!" Tails shouts from above.

What does it look like Knuckles is doing?

Soon Tails drops down to fight on the ground once more, fighting back to back with Knuckles, which really gives Knuckles some anxiety in the 'if I get my best friend's little brother killed he's going to kill _me_ '-department, but Tails, despite what anyone might say about him, knows how to handle himself. He's very clever.

It's all going really well, actually, which of course is when they get themselves backed into a trap. Surrounded by a bunch of Egg pawns, and really, _that's_ no problem, but the stone arch above their heads is starting to creak alarmingly and they can't get out because the pawns are weak but still too many and the resistance better win this battle _or else-_

The last thing Knuckles does before losing consciousness is to throw himself at Tails in the hopes of shielding him from the worst of a building collapsing on top of them, thinking that _at least Tails-_

* * *

 **At the same time…**

Amy gets Infinite's attention.

Whisper shoots him in the back of his head, and Infinite stumbles forward-

And next, Sonic leaping forward to catch him off guard.

Sonic viciously kicks him down into the sand, _eat dirt_ , dances back before Infinite can grab him.

Infinite _howls_ and this time Sonic isn't fast enough to dodge the slice of red light, and he bites down on any sound, any reaction as it cuts into his arm, nicks his cheek. What's a little blood? What's it matter, huh?

Sonic can keep going, he's going to keep going.

(it's only the sea that scares him-)

He's on edge and impatient, _angry_. He wants to strike but Amy's behind his shoulder preaching about _caution_.

Infinite is absolutely furious. He seems to have forgotten that he can fly in favour of stalking around angrily, prowling with his blade in hand, dirty hair whipping in his face. He's bleeding from a gash in his forehead.

Sonic's wrist feels like it's sprained, but he doesn't need a wrist to run.

Infinite has ditched some of his arrogance in favour of keeping an eye on them all. They're prowling in circles around each other, Whisper backing away and Amy gravitating closer, Sonic keeping all of his attention on Infinite.

(he almost drowned him-)

Sonic does not cringe at the phantom feel of water rising over his face.

Infinite lunges forward and Sonic flips backward, out of the way, and then Amy's hammer _slams_ into the ground right behind Infinite, sand spraying.

"Keep it up, Amy," Sonic shouts.

"You insects," Infinite hisses. "Too scared to challenge me head on."

Behind him, Sonic sees Whisper line up another shot-

Infinite whirls around and throws his sword, Sonic reacting a split-second too late-

-and then Sonic pays for his second of stunned horror, as Infinite throws himself over Sonic. There's not even room enough for a fucking joke because the panic comes _immediately_ and it feels like Sonic's chest is caving in with the force of it and he trashes, helpless, what about Whisper but the sea, please not water _please_ -

"Not so fast now," Infinite whispers, "Not so clever now, are you? ARE YOU?" he snarls and then his claws bite into Sonic's neck and Sonic jerks backward and the world whites out-

He wakes up.

He gasps for air and opens his eyes, he's lying on the shore, the beach.

He can't see Infinite.

The ocean washes over his feet where he lies in the wet sand and Sonic shudders.

The ocean- he has to get away.

He's going to prop himself up but he's so tired.

His arms don't listen to him and his wrist throbs with even more pain.

The water-

The water shushes gently as it washes over the beach again.

Washes over his legs.

"Sonic?" a scream.

Amy is running towards him.

"Sonic, oh, she's _dead_ , she's-"

"Who?" Sonic croaks.

Amy's clutching a mask scope in her hands.

"No," Sonic breathes. "No, no, no…"

She was so brave, she was-

She was…

She was?

Her name was…?

* * *

Amy hears Sonic whimper as Infinite strangles him and forgets about playing it safe, just lunges forward to wham her hammer into Infinite's head. It connects and he lurches back, and Amy wrenches him away from Sonic's body, them both clawing at each other. For a second Amy's vision goes red, and blood's dripping from her nose, but it's _not over_.

Infinite's crouching in the sand, listing to the side.

Amy scrambles back, suddenly wary, and quickly snags her hammer back from the sand. Her heart's tripping, and Sonic isn't moving.

Infinite is grimacing.

Maybe he's smirking.

He holds up a hand and says, "You _pest_." He curls the fingers of his hand and his palm glows red. " _Kneel_ , or your precious rat-"

Sonic makes a noise, suddenly, and Amy's eyes skip to him, and he's just lying in the sand and gasping, eyes shut.

"No." Amy spits, not letting a single drop of her fear be heard in her voice. "You can't hurt him."

Infinite doesn't even move a finger but Sonic trashes like he's trying to get away, gasping and whimpering.

"Sonic!" Amy screams.

She wills another hammer into existence. "Stop," she snarls, advancing on Infinite, hammer held ready-

Sonic croaks, and then he starts whispering, "No, no, _no_ -"

Amy stops, Infinite smirking at her, Sonic huddling on the beach and crying _no, no_ , eyes shut, and the wolf she's lying in a heap, she's bleeding. Amy doesn't know where to turn, Amy can't-

* * *

Whisper the Wolf is bleeding from her ear, because that's where the sword nicked her.

She wiped the blood off the edge and then she stowed that blade away in her cloak.

Her friends, the Wisps, are twittering now, too softly for anyone but her to hear.

If you're quiet, and if you listen, then you can hear many things.

Through her scope Whisper sees when Sonic the Hedgehog falls, and how he doesn't get up.

Amy Rose leaps to his aid, but after the brief struggle with Infinite the Tyrant, she stumbles away and simply stands there in the sand, holding her hammer and staring unseeing.

The little ruby-red gem that Whisper found in Chemical Plant is practically humming from its pocket.

Infinite is manipulating... something.

Whisper, safe where she's crouched behind a sand dune at a reasonable sniper's distance, reaches a hand into her cloak. When she closes her fingers around the stone, a thrill like a static shock goes through her arm.

She cradles the tiny red stone shard in one hand, and takes a slow, quiet breath.

 _Focus._

Infinite is struggling to his feet, and Whisper sees the moment when he senses it happen.

The gemstone pulses in Whisper's hand.

The view through her scope seems to shiver.

Then Amy snaps into motion, whirling around and stumbling.

On the beach, Sonic rolls over onto his stomach.

Whisper's mouth opens into a small smirk, she lets go of the ruby shard, and presses the trigger.

* * *

 **Meanwhile…**

The realisation takes long, long seconds to sink in, but then Amy gets it. Mind games, Infinite, that _bastard_ -

And Infinite is falling, Whisper got him, Whisper is alive and waving to Amy.

Amy's got her hammer, Whisper is over there, and Sonic is… lying in the surf, so Amy rushes to his side. She feels overwhelmed with that - very fake vision, illusion, whatever is was, of Sonic twitching and helpless-

"Sonic?" she asks, lifting Sonic so his head is in Amy's lap.

His eyes are closed but he's breathing.

"Sonic? ...Sonic?"

-Amy takes a deep breath, then stands up. She drags Sonic up by his armpits, then pulls him into a fireman's carry.

He doesn't stir.

As much as Amy loathes the thought, they need to leave. Amy needs to get Sonic to safety.

When Infinite's prone farm starts glowing red, the decision firmens inside Amy's mind. Quickly, Amy starts making her way away from Infinite, towards the jungle. Whisper comes jogging to meet her, Wispon slung over her shoulder, and okay, she's bleeding. But just a little, right? Right?

"Are you okay, Whisper?"

"Fine," she whispers. " _Go_."

They stagger off into the jungle, taking the first road they find.


End file.
